


Walls of Jericho

by antigrav_vector



Series: (R)BB fics - all pairings [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (potentially inaccurate) first aid, (probably inaccurate description of) a panic attack, Action, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Comic Book Science, First Kiss, Get together fic, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, I mean very slow, M/M, Mission Fic, Pining, SO much mission fic, Sharing a Bed, Slow Build, and ignores all subsequent movie canon, but no actual porn, goes AU before Age of Ultron, implied sex, mild whump, non-graphic blood and gore, off-screen sex, pov fic, reasonably accurate real world science, recovery of memories, sleeping together of the non-sexy kind, this got out of control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 20:07:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 54,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4578219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antigrav_vector/pseuds/antigrav_vector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of CATWS, Tony discovers something in the leaked SHIELD data that catches everyone's attention. A list of HYDRA research bases. When the team starts taking them out, however, things go sideways in ways they didn't expect. Director Fury pulls his support, the HYDRA bases are not what they seem, and a certain ghost is testing the edges of their mission parameters... And through it all, Tony can't seem to help but dig until he gets to the bottom of things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walls of Jericho

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a submission for the 2015 WinterIron Big Bang, found here [on tumblr](winterironbang.tumblr.com). This would have been far less coherent without my lovely beta readers, lil_1337, and MusicalLuna. And y'all should go heap all the love on my kickass artist [chrisdoritoevans](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Popcornzoe/pseuds/chrisdoritoevans). Her art can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4579905).
> 
> Apologies if any of the Russian is incorrect. I don't speak it, so was forced to use google translate.  
> EDIT, 22.06.2016: Translations updated, now. With a big thank you to Shr0_0ms. 
> 
> As in other long!fics, footnotes are clickable and contain links back to the main text.

"On your left, Cap!"

Tony watched as Cap dove right with a smoothness born of long training and tucked himself into a roll that took him behind the nearest cover. Back on his feet without missing a beat, Cap threw his shield, letting it ricochet off of two convenient trees before it hit the HYDRA goon who'd been trying to sneak up on him in the face.

The goon fell backwards and hit the dirt with a thump.

"Thanks, Iron Man," Cap called out in reply, catching his shield as it flew back towards him, faithful as a boomerang.

A glance at the wooded area surrounding the well-hidden entryway of the base Tony was currently hovering over, providing an eye in the sky and taking pot shots at whatever targets presented themselves, revealed nothing untoward. Only the carefully orchestrated chaos of a fight involving the Avengers. It was surprising, considering that this was a HYDRA research base, and that knowledge had Tony a little on edge. They were currently deep in what had been considered German territory during the second world war, in Alsace, off the beaten path in the nature park to the west of Colmar[1]. Without support waiting to jump in if things went sideways. Everything about the situation just made his instincts scream at him. It was too easy. HYDRA really ought to have had better defenses for a place like this.

At least out here there weren't many civilians to get in their way.

A weird hybrid of a tank and a half-track exploded below Tony and vaguely to his right, and Hawkeye cheered. Tony smirked, surveying the wreckage and the pillar of smoke, day before he turned to his AI. "You got anything for me, J?"

"You have five missed calls from Assistant Director Hill and seven from Director Fury. They seem to feel that the team has acted precipitously in taking this mission on without proper authorisation, judging by the increasingly irate messages they left with me."

Tony huffed a laugh. "Yeah, sure. We knew that would happen. What information have you got about the base? You know, the thing I'm hovering over with the intent to blow it to kingdom come?"

"Cap, Iron Man," Hawkeye broke in over the team comm line, "We've got movement about half a klick to the north. Might be a tunnel leading out of the base."

"Iron Man," Cap chimed in a moment later, "go check it out. You're free and faster than any of the rest of us. Hawkeye, keep an eye on the perimeter. We don't want to have to chase any more escapees."

"Roger, Rogers."

The quip got a vaguely irritated noise out of Cap, as usual, as Tony turned and jetted off to investigate, letting the acceleration press him against the shock absorbing elements in his suit. The word in the leaked SHIELD data that Tony had datamined to the full extent of his and JARVIS' ability had hinted at unsavoury experiments taking place at this base. Human experimentation and memory alteration. He'd barely had enough time to get the words out before Cap's expression had darkened. Clint and Natasha had respectively gone still and angry.

The end result of that team meeting had been a foregone conclusion. They would be going after the base with the intention to destroy it and all of the research -- and data -- on site. Tony intended to transfer a copy of whatever data they found to his home servers for analysis and for backup as possible evidence. And Fury wouldn't get a say in whether they went to France or not. Tony had personally felt that this would be the riskiest part of the plan, really. Word would get back to whatever was left of SHIELD about their little field trip, and quickly... which meant that when they got back Fury would be, well, furious. Not that he had any room to talk after the data Natasha had leaked went public, inextricably linking the organization with HYDRA. But the leaked information had also been what had let Tony and JARVIS pinpoint the location of several HYDRA bases, including the one they were currently trashing. Tony was pretty sure Cap was going after the bases out of a mix of pique and déjà-vu. Hoping that by destroying HYDRA bases again in this new century, he could pull off what he had last time, and find his best friend.

There was a certain symmetry in it, Tony had to admit, but he was pretty sure the effort would be wasted. HYDRA had a lot more resources now than they'd had in Steve's first go around, and they would rebuild as quickly as the team could take out their bases. HYDRA-owned politicians and bankers and insurance companies. Among a lot of others. Throughout the world. They weren't just restricted to Nazi-occupied territory anymore.

And wasn't that ironic. Hitler had lost, and soundly, but the devils spawned during his reign had fought on and gotten their claws into literally everything Tony could think of, from the economy to the world of collegiate education. In some ways it made him sick to think that maybe some of his professors at MIT had been HYDRA. And there were hints in the leaked information that Obie had been, as well. He shook himself out of the thoughts as the group of would-be escape artists showed up highlighted on his HUD.

A textbook-perfect three point landing on the narrow footpath in front of the group of people Hawkeye had reported resulted in a scramble. The five men tried their best to stop, turn, and scatter, clearly hoping to escape by providing him with more targets than he could follow. JARVIS had the micro-stun munitions primed and ready to fire before Tony could ask for them, and then the five men were dropping to the ground, unconscious. They would be out for about an hour, and meantime, the team could secure the base. He quickly searched the men for weapons and other obvious valuable or useful items, turning up a couple of relatively high level access cards in their pockets and one _very_ interesting energy weapon that he'd have to investigate in detail later.

If nothing else, he mused to himself as he pocketed the thing, stuffing it in one of the ammo bays he'd emptied over the course of the fight, he'd have to reverse engineer it to make sure the team's uniforms and his armour could withstand its effects, whatever they were. And he didn't particularly like the idea of letting it vanish into SHIELD's research division. They'd made a real hash of things when they'd all but handed the Tesseract to Loki and jumpstarted the Chitauri invasion. And that didn't even begin to mention that the organisation had turned out to be riddled with HYDRA agents after Cap's high profile takedown of the new helicarriers over the Potomac. Really, after that revelation, a lot of things had started making more sense. What with HYDRA's well-known obsession with the occult in general, and Asgard in particular, it was almost logical that they'd pull that kind of stunt.

"Good catch, Hawkeye," he said into the comm, refocusing his attention on the unconscious HYDRA officers and quickly rifling through their pockets for anything he'd missed. Finding nothing more, he went on, "I've got five of 'em waiting for pickup about a klick north of the base. Stunned, but uninjured. Seem to be fairly highly ranked, judging by their access cards. I don't have enough cuffs for all of them, so an assist would be appreciated."

"Widow," Cap's voice answered, "you're closest. We'll cover you."

"I'll be there in two," Natasha added. "Hold tight."

Tony amused himself by studying the area while he waited, keeping an eye on his captives with JARVIS' help. The tunnel exit had to be somewhere nearby, and he wanted to find it. After all, there was a good chance it led to something interesting.

He didn't find it before Natasha showed up, and she hissed a vehement curse in Russian when she spotted the men. She cued the team comm line and spoke briskly into it. "Cap, we've managed to bag Strucker."

"Wait, what?" Cap sounded somewhere between puzzled and stunned surprise.

"Later," Tony put in. He didn't know who this asshole was beyond the generalities that had come up in the leaked data, but it didn't matter. "Deal with him later. He's out cold. We've got to finish tearing down the base, first."

Natasha went down on one knee and pried open the first guy's mouth and pulled something out. Even unconscious, the guy twitched like a landed fish in reaction. Tony was caught between a sympathetic wince for how much that had probably hurt and mild revulsion at the sight of Widow kneeling over the guy with something bloody in her hand.

"Iron Man," her voice held a distinct note of command, "hold onto these. HYDRA agents, especially the higher ranked ones and the spies, have cyanide capsules implanted in their teeth."

He held out his hand, resigned to doing what she wanted, and quipped, "I don't exactly have pockets, you know."

"I know." She dropped the fake tooth into his gauntlet, where it landed with a quiet _'tink'_ on the lens of his repulsor, still bloody. Tony wanted to recoil. Ew. Before he could, though, Natasha continued, "I'll take them back once we have all of them. First we have to get all five."

It was a weirdly rhythmic kind of task. Tony tried not to think about it. Sure, he dealt with injuries and blood pretty often, but this was not the kind of violence he generally dealt in. It was somehow both clinical and cruel. Albeit necessary, if they wanted their captives alive for questioning.

The fourth fake tooth fell into his gauntlet, and then Widow moved on to the last. Strucker.

She knelt down, her knee landing on the man's sternum, and reached into his mouth. And made a surprised noise. "He doesn't have one. This could be a body double."

"Whatever," Tony dismissed the concern, "we'll deal with that when we're back stateside. Even if it's not him, he could know something. We'll just have to gag him in case he's hiding something."

Natasha shrugged, but she rolled the man over none too gently and cuffed him before doing the same for two more. Tony handed her the cyanide capsules, and cuffed the last pair. "Hey, Cap," he called into the comm, "how we doing on the base demolition?"

"Nearly done," came the reply, though it was Hawkeye who answered. "One of the assholes managed to break Cap's commlink, but we've planted the charges. Cap's wiring up the last set right now. Just need you to come grab the data. It's encrypted somehow and I can't get in. Servers are on the second basement level. You can't miss 'em. The door's painted neon orange for some reason."

"Be right there," Tony smirked. He wanted to crack his knuckles in anticipation. "Just don't light the fuse yet. Widow, it might be worth finding the entrance of the tunnel these guys came out of."

"I'll look into it. Go get the data."

Taking to the air was a relief after that experience, and Tony took a moment to enjoy flying as he jetted back toward the base entrance, letting it clear his mind as he returned to the small area the fight had been centered in and around. The entrance itself was well disguised in a crevice between a grouping of enormous boulders and far from the beaten path. Amazingly, there weren't even many traces of the base's existence near the concealed entrance. Tony spared a moment to wonder how the hell they'd brought in supplies without anyone noticing, and without leaving behind tracks a blind man could follow. That usually involved trucks and boxes. And lots of trash.

Ducking through the outermost door, which was hanging half off its hinges where one of his teammates had pretty obviously forced it open, Tony paused just long enough for his HUD to compensate for the suddenly much dimmer lighting. It revealed a second door, this one with a smashed keypad and a motion sensor that still worked. It slid aside with a rattle and a shriek of metal on ungreased metal, revealing a very plain corridor with a concrete floor and whitewashed concrete walls. There were a couple of signs at the far end of the short corridor, hung at eye height in the center of the T-junction and written in German. JARVIS automatically translated them for him on the HUD, but Tony didn't need the help, for once. _Server-Raum_ was pretty clear. The others were almost too banal; one for the toilets and one for the cafeteria.

Tony wanted to shake his head. Priorities.

Well, goons were likely the same the world over. And some things were universally important.

A glance around him revealed nothing more than an empty corridor to either side, a few scorch marks marring the previously fairly clean walls, and a stairwell in front of him with a large boot-shaped dent in the metal fire door just about where the bolt should have been. Now there was a ragged tear in the metal of the doorframe where the bolt had been forced. Probably Cap's work. With a mental shrug, Tony pushed open the heavy metal door of the stairwell and started making his way down. Just before he reached the second basement floor, Tony ran into Clint, who was jogging back up the stairwell.

"Iron Man," Clint have him a sloppy half-salute. "Nice of you to join us."

Tony flipped him off. "Any idea what kind of encryption they're using, Hawkeye?"

"No. It's not like anything I'm familiar with."

Interesting. Clint knew a lot of the more commonly used encryption types as a direct result of his missions for SHIELD. If he didn't know this one, odds were good it was HYDRA-specific; something they'd developed for themselves. And he was also passable at hacking passwords. This was getting more interesting by the minute.

"Well, I guess they wouldn't be inclined to make it easy. Lucky me. I like a challenge." Tony turned and pulled open the hallway door. It squealed loudly, echoing in the confines of the stairwell and making him wince. Clearly, HYDRA goons were not known for their skill in facilities maintenance. For that matter, Tony wondered, did HYDRA even have the equivalent of facilities maintenance, or did they randomly press-gang their goons into it?

Clint grimaced. "I hate that sound. So. Much."

"There are worse ones," Cap interjected, also appearing from the flight below. "Get on with it, Iron Man. I'd like to get this wrapped up. If Strucker's involved, odds are good there's something disgusting going on."

"No evidence of it here, though, Cap," Clint objected. "The other areas of the base are empty. And it kinda looks like they were ready for us. A lot of heavy equipment has been moved, and recently."

Cap's expression hardened. "Then we'd better figure out where we can find it."

Deciding not to let himself get sucked into that discussion, Tony stepped out into the corridor. As Clint had promised, there was a door just across the hallway painted an almost eye-searing shade of orange. It looked like the kind of color that hardware stores sold at ridiculously deep discount because no one sane wanted to buy it.

The door was ajar, and the number pad formerly mounted on the wall beside the doorframe at waist height had been torn out and left to hang by a pair of wires, one red and one green. A black one had been cut and left to hang loose. Behind the door, as promised, were racks of servers. Almost as many as he had bought for JARVIS, over the years. It seemed like overkill. What could they possibly need that kind of computing power for, here? There had been no indication that this base was associated with Project Insight. Was there a backup plan for the event of Project Insight going down in flames? No, strike that. He was sure there was, but it was not here. Something like that would have been defended by a ridiculous number of safeguards.

No. This was something else.

As he approached the central terminal, Hawkeye entered the room behind him and a screen lit up on the back wall without input from either of them. It remained blank, displaying nothing but a bland standardised no-signal error message, but the little red power LED was lit. Tony eyed it suspiciously. That was weird.

In contrast to the much more modern accoutrements, the central terminal was fucking ancient. It looked like it had been designed and built in the late seventies or early eighties, with its rows and rows of square mechanical backlit buttons and manual toggle switches, and contrasted strangely with the blade servers throughout the room that had been installed within the last 18 months, judging by the model numbers JARVIS displayed for him. It even still had a clunky (working) 5"x8" CRT monitor. The tech level here was really making Tony want to cringe. What the fuck was something this ancient doing in a HYDRA _research base_ , of all places? Why the hell didn't they have something more advanced in this bizarre mess of a server room to match the modern server racks?

And the room itself was another jarring note, for that matter. There was a lot of unused space, and there were clear signs, in the form of gouges in the yellowing linoleum floor, that there had been equipment in here that had since been removed. Perhaps for an upgrade to the servers that ended up requiring less floor space than the original.

"Ooookay," Clint muttered, still eyeing the live screen, "this room just somehow got creepier than before."

"Did something weird happen last time you were in here?" Tony asked him.

"Nah. Everything behaved like normal tech. The screen that turns itself on is new. But it did feel like I was being watched, even though we disabled the base's security cameras before we came in here."

"Could be on a separate circuit," Tony suggested. "Or it could just be paranoia. Did you do anything besides try to break the password?"

Clint eyed him dubiously, but didn't reply. "No. But who the fuck knows what weird shit HYDRA has running on their servers."

Tony stepped up to the terminal and tapped at the old dusty mechanical keyboard, waking the computer from its sleep mode. The loud clicking of the mechanical keys seemed to echo in the room, and Tony tried to shake off the feeling that this would end badly. He forced down a shudder. Even the echoes of his keystrokes sounded off somehow, as though there were something obscured by shadows in the dark corners of the room. He turned to physically put the irrationally threatening spot out of his peripheral vision; he would need to be able to focus in a second, to copy the data safely to his servers.

In response to his keystrokes, predictably, a password prompt appeared. Albeit with a bit of lag. "Hmmm, suggestions, J?"

"Not at present, Sir."

Clint stepped up behind him. "I tried a bunch of the passwords and encryptions we run into most often with HYDRA, and they didn't work. This is either a trap or something more obscure than I have the know-how to break."

Tony considered that for a moment, then tried inputting a DOS command, hoping to get away from the password prompt and to a command shell. To his surprise, it worked. It shouldn't have been that simple.

Nothing about this room made any damned sense.

_[Initiate System? Y/N]_

Tony raised an eyebrow at it, staring it down for a few seconds, considering. "JARVIS?"

"Sir?"

"What are the odds that this will cause a disaster?"

"Fairly high, sir. HYDRA is not known for their benign humanitarianism."

Smartass. Tony laughed. Cuing his comm, he announced, "Hey, team, listen up. What I'm about to do might trigger some HYDRA trap to go off. Keep an eye out for... well, anything weird."

Clint snorted. "Widow, let Cap know. His comm's useless."

"Copy that, Hawkeye. Be careful. We don't need a repeat of Budapest."

"That wasn't my fault," Clint protested.

"So when are you gonna tell me about Budapest," Tony interjected. "It's been bugging me since New York."

"Preferably, half past never," Clint retorted.

With an amused huff, Tony let it go and removed his helmet as he turned back to the terminal. Clint was right; it _did_ feel like they were being watched, however farfetched that was. "Y-E-S, spells yes.... Shall we play a game?"

Clint groaned, muttering something about terrible movies as the whine of server fans grew louder in the background. Tony waited as the system powered up, and eventually the screen in front of them lit up with Matrix-esque green streaks. He'd have thought the boot time would be shorter, considering the modern server racks.

Maybe Clint was right. He did have pretty good instincts for this kind of work.

Then a crackle came from a speaker embedded in the console below the screen and the green streaks resolved into something vaguely resembling a face. Tony wasn't sure whether he was more stunned or intrigued. If HYDRA was going to put together an interface for their database that looked like a person, would it be this weird and creepy? Maybe.

A staticky voice with very weird harmonics began speaking, accompanied by a short whine as a camera above them and to their right focused, and Tony blinked, a truly foreboding feeling starting to build like a knot in the pit of his stomach. He forced himself to ignore it as best he could. He needed to know what he was working with -- or against -- to retrieve the data.

"Stark, Anthony Edward. Alias Iron Man. Born 1970." The camera moved and refocused with another short whine. "Barton, Clinton Francis. Alias Hawkeye. Born 1971."

Clint didn't take his eyes off the camera lens, or his hand off his bow. "Some kind of recording?"

"A recording wouldn't be able to use cameras to identify people. That takes much more complex coding than just a ridiculously creepy new implementation of Microsoft Sam. More likely that it's a rudimentary artificial intelligence with access to SHIELD's files on us," Tony replied. Why was HYDRA working on an AI? Why hadn't they moved it out of this base with the rest of their equipment and goons? That kind of research had to be one of their more expensive ventures, if they needed this many servers for it.

"Correction," the creepy voice retorted, "my name is Arnim Zola, and I am not an artificial intelligence." The sound of that name, even on electronic lips, sent a chill down Tony's spine. That couldn't be. Cap had said he'd killed what was left of Zola.

"Arnim Zola has been dead for decades." Tony disagreed, his mission to steal the data on those servers suddenly moving up a few ranks in importance. "I call bullshit. You may have a rudimentary form of intelligence, but there's no way that you're Zola. Let alone sentient."

An eerie sound that approximated a chuckle answered him. "Look around you. I have never been more alive. In 1972, I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body. My mind, however... that was worth preserving. It was initially stored on 200,000 feet of databanks, and more recently transferred to the servers you see before you. You are standing in my brain."

"And what about the copy of you that was destroyed not that long ago, then?" Tony asked, hoping to get some real answers. He wasn't convinced that this was actually Zola, but there was no other choice but to roll with the metaphorical punches for now. Trying to work through the implications of this development was getting him nowhere. Might as well try to pry some more information out of this AI. Or whatever it was. He didn't like Clint's stiff tension and total silence. That boded ill.

"An out-of-date backup. I would hardly kill myself in such a manner," Zola replied. "Not after the trouble it took to preserve my knowledge for the glory of HYDRA. Do not deceive yourself into thinking that this is the only copy remaining, either, Mr. Stark."

Well, there went that vague hope. It had been a long shot, anyhow. "So, what are you after," he prompted. Rule number one in the book was 'keep the supervillain talking', after all.

"HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realise was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist."

An image of Steve in his full World War II regalia appeared on the screen, replacing Zola's face for a moment, followed by a shot of the D-Day invasion at Omaha beach in Normandy. Tony wanted to sigh. Supervillains. Why were they all the same?

"The war taught us much," Zola continued as the second image faded away. "Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, SHIELD was founded, and I was recruited." Zola flashed photographs across the screen of Aunt Peggy and his father, in black and white, clearly taken during SHIELD's early days.

"The new HYDRA grew," Zola's voice went sly as he continued telling his story, "a beautiful parasite, inside SHIELD. For 70 years, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis. Reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed." Another image flashed on the screen, this time of what Tony could only assume was the Winter Soldier. The prosthetic arm was a dead giveaway after the hours he'd spent combing through the intermingled SHIELD and HYDRA data that Natasha had leaked to the internet.

Clint shook his head in disbelief when Zola finally wound down. "That's impossible; SHIELD would have stopped you."

Tony was relieved that Zola hadn't hit on any of Clint's triggers hard enough to do more than stun him.

"Ah, but that would only work if SHIELD was aware of our presence within their ranks," the Nazi scientist retorted, drawing Tony's attention back away from his teammate. "Until the events two months ago in Washington DC, they were not. Now, however, the world is aware, and anti-US sentiment is growing rapidly, fostering conflict around the globe. Even now, HYDRA is poised to plunge the world into the conflict that will allow us to solidify our rule."

Tony could see only too well how the events would play right into HYDRA's hands if they were allowed to. Shit. He could readily concede to Cap the point that HYDRA needed to be stopped, but simply rooting them out of SHIELD, weakening the untainted parts of organisation in the process, and then letting the world know about their presence inside SHIELD, accomplished nothing other than to discredit SHIELD itself. Anyone affiliated with HYDRA but outside SHIELD could distance themselves from the allegations. There were plenty of good lawyers available for hire. Nothing would change, and the team would simultaneously have less resources with which to fight the threat.

Hell, HYDRA could very well have carefully orchestrated and limited the information that Natasha had found and leaked, without anyone realizing it. Could have lead the team here with a trail of breadcrumbs that he and JARVIS had diligently followed.

"And what are you planning to do," Clint challenged.

"It matters not. Our plans are already in motion, and any attempts to interfere with them will prove futile, as you will see. Anyone who could have stopped them has been dealt with."

"What do you mean?" Tony asked.

Zola chuckled again, the sound making something tighten in the pit of Tony's stomach. When Zola spoke again, his tone was cruel. "Accidents," he said, as his face disappeared to be replaced by an image of Howard Stark, as he had looked decades ago, with black bars over his features and then headline of his death as it had appeared in the paper the following morning, "will happen."

Tony's breath caught in his throat. _Holy shit._

There hadn't been any love lost between him and his father, prior to Howard's death. But it had still hit hard when he'd gotten the news. To hear that it hadn't been an accident... left Tony conflicted. He didn't really have it in him to hate his father anymore. He'd made his peace with that choking ball of emotions during the fiasco with Hammer and Vanko. But knowing that his father had been killed, that it had been HYDRA... It really put the whole situation in a whole new light.

Suddenly feeling vulnerable, Tony put his helmet back on. He found himself wondering whether Cap knew about that little factoid. It was possible; Cap had confronted Zola, too. That he hadn't said anything about it to Tony showed either a surprising perceptiveness, or an unwillingness to break their working relationship. He wasn't sure which.

"I will admit that Stane's mistakes later were well-deserving of punishment," Zola continued, breaking into his thoughts and casually revealing that HYDRA had tried to orchestrate his death as well as his father's. Tony gaped, stunned and very glad his expression was hidden behind his faceplate. Zola's tone went almost regretful as he went on, "I had hoped he might survive the experience. But I suppose it could not be helped. You were always somewhat impetuous, Mr. Stark."

Zola's face reappeared as the image of his father faded from view. "HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally willing to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security."

"And how precisely do you intend to do that, now that Project Insight has been very effectively decommissioned," Tony retorted, rallying what focus he had left after that series of revelations. "That must have been a hell of a setback."

He heard Clint snort, amused, as Zola replied.

"SHIELD has also been quite effectively taken out of play, Mr. Stark," Zola sneered.

An image of Fury's file with a deceased stamp came up on the screen next in an obvious attempt to underscore the rhetoric, and Tony felt a surge of relief. So Fury had managed to keep his survival a secret from HYDRA. At least they had that much working in their favour, here. At this moment, deep inside HYDRA's research base, they were effectively behind enemy lines with no knowledge of what else HYDRA might have up their sleeves. For all they knew, HYDRA had a suborbital laser trained on the place right now. The fact that Zola had survived Cap's initial discovery of his existence was telling; HYDRA had a lot more resources than SHIELD knew about. Or at least, a lot more than had been even hinted at in the leaked data.

Without knowing what to expect, they would have to tread very carefully, and try to figure out how to shut down Zola. This set of servers undoubtedly held all sorts of information whose retrieval SHIELD would consider high priority. Trying to get said information while Zola's simulated consciousness was active would be futile. That much was clear from the high level encryption Clint had stumbled on, earlier. These servers would not be lightly protected, electronically. Physically, they were easy to access, but Tony suspected that to get the data off them without shutting down the system and physically removing it from the premises would be on par with trying to hack through JARVIS' systems against active defenses. If not harder. JARVIS was good, but he didn't -- yet -- have the same level of creativity a person had. If this truly _was_ a copy of Zola's brain, it would be like trying to hack a person.

And damn if that thought didn't send a very visceral shudder of revulsion through Tony. Just no. He had less than zero desire to hack a Nazi. And what the hell was his life coming to that that was even a sentence that made sense?

The only good news in this was that they hadn't managed to re-infiltrate SHIELD after DC. If they had, they would know about Fury.

Clint didn't react other than to tighten his grip on his bow, and Tony was glad his friend didn't have any more obvious tells.

After a dramatic pause, Zola went on. "And Project Insight requires... insight. So I wrote an algorithm. Merely destroying the hardware designed to put it into action will not stop us."

"What kind of algorithm? What does it do?" The uneasy feelings intensified; Tony was sure he wasn't going to like this.

"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it."

"Yeah? How do you figure that?"

Natasha broke in over the comm. "Hawkeye, Iron Man, we've got a problem. The base has a self-destruct mechanism and it just activated. You've got 30 seconds, tops. Get the hell out of there."

Shit. That was bad. They'd wired enough explosives themselves to level the base. Those would doubtless detonate the moment the base's self-destruct went off. That would cause a much bigger explosion than they'd initially calculated. Fuck. Tony could only hope the others had retreated back farther from the base. The safety margin on their hot-zone was not going to be enough when the timer ran down. Not only would he be seriously injured and Clint be dead instantly if they were caught inside the base during the detonation, the others could also be injured or killed by the shockwave.

"I was stalling." Zola chuckled again, the sound echoing eerily in the half-empty room. "Yes," he taunted them, "run. Flee before HYDRA's might. No doubt we shall meet again. If you survive."

Tony ignored the statement, stepping over to grab Clint by his quiver harness and aiming his free hand at the ceiling to blast at it with his repulsor. "Clench up," he gritted out as chunks of concrete fell onto the console. "We're getting out of here."

Zola smirked at them, smugly. "That ceiling is reinforced. You will not--"

The snide words cut off as Tony slagged the speaker Zola had been using. "That's enough out of you."

"Come on, Iron Man. Better make a break for the stairs," Clint suggested. "You'll have a better chance of blasting through the fire door."

Tony wrapped his left arm around Clint's waist, carefully curling around his friend as he plowed through the server room door with his shoulder and as much juice as his bootjets could muster. He repeated the maneuver with the stairwell entrance and ping-ponged up the five flights to the ground floor, narrowly missing hitting the wall with the length of his body each time he changed direction in his haste. As it was, he scraped some paint off the free arm and shoulder of the suit in the impacts. And in any case, a few bruises were vastly preferable to being caught in the blast that was about to go off. The door at the top of the stairwell met the same fate as the previous two, falling to the floor behind them with a loud crash. Not that Tony was sticking around to hear it.

"Ten more seconds, sir," JARVIS, ever conscious of such things, mentioned, bringing up a countdown in a corner of the HUD.

"Almost there," Tony answered, directing more power to his palm repulsor than he had for the attempt to blast through the ceiling. "Brace for impact, Legolas. The front door is a little more substantial."

The shot he fired from his repulsor put a sizeable dent in the door near the upper track of the automatic door, but wasn't quite powerful enough to blow it out entirely. That was accomplished by the impact of Tony's shoulder with the dent he'd put in the door. It still jarred his entire body, and no doubt Clint's as well, even though the door's structure had been weakened considerably by his shot.

It fell to the ground, as the others had, as Tony shot out past the last set of doors and upward into the air, and that not a moment too soon, either. Taking a bare moment to redirect all of the available power he had to his bootjets, Tony continued to fly upward through the tree branches that whipped at them. For once, Tony didn't bother with keeping the flight comfortable for Clint, who hung onto the suit with grimly determined strength. Every millisecond counted, now.

They'd cleared the base exit cleanly, but JARVIS' countdown hit zero before he'd made it more than five meters past the door, followed by a rumble of sound and a wave of superheated air. The shockwave hit as they were about thirty meters away, sending Tony tumbling and nearly making him drop Clint, followed by a billow of smoke and flame that would have heated the surface of the armour enough to peel the paint had they been closer. As it was, it probably felt to his passenger like standing too close to a forgefire. Tony could faintly feel the heat transmitted through the armour and undersuit.

Their tumble ended in a dizzying trajectory that took them through two treetops, and bounced them off the trunk of a third tree before Tony could stabilise their flight.

When they landed near the others, who had indeed retreated to a safer position and were uninjured by the blast, Clint was breathing hard, his eyes dilated wide and his exposed skin bright pink. A number of scratches were bleeding openly on his arms. There were probably also splinters and bruises that would rise as they flew home to New York. But they were both alive, and more or less in one piece.

Tony watched, caught somewhere between relief and disbelief, as Natasha hustled the archer off to the quinjet they'd stashed nearby, and started checking him over. Cap stepped up to Tony, and tapped on his faceplate. "Come on, Shellhead. Open up."

"I'm fine, Cap," Tony tried to demur, but Cap had his stubborn face on.

Tony watched the set of Cap's jaw firm a little more. "Tony. Open the faceplate. Now."

With a put-upon sigh, Tony complied. "You're more than a little mother-hennish today, you know."

"This is far from the first time you've gotten yourself blown up. And what kind of leader would I be if I didn't keep an eye on my team?"

Forced to concede the point, Tony rolled his eyes. "I'm _fine_. Just a little shook up, and a little bruised. Hawkeye got it worse."

"As long as it's nothing more serious." Cap eyed him for a long moment, then turned toward the Quinjet, where the unconscious goons were strapped in, still out cold, and Hawkeye was bitching at Widow. "Hawkeye, status report," he snapped at the archer.

"Give me a few days to kick the sunburn, and I'll be fine," Clint said. When Natasha hit a sore spot as she patched him up, he whined, "Ow! Watch it, Widow! I'll need that arm to fly us home."

They were in the air less than fifteen minutes later, and Tony flew alongside, pacing the jet. Usually Thor would be keeping pace on the other side of the jet, but he was off handling something in Asgard. After the mess with the Aether and the destruction that had caused in London, he'd been forced to spend some time at home. Tony found himself hoping Thor would be back soon. Against all expectations, he missed the guy. And not just because he was one of the team's heavy hitters and their other flyer.

"Sir," JARVIS even tones broke into his thoughts, "perhaps it would be prudent in this case to review the events of the mission prior to debrief?"

Tony grimaced. In retrospect, it was actually better that they'd stayed and talked to Zola. If they hadn't, they wouldn't have known about the base's self-destruct and probably all gotten hurt in the blast they'd wired up themselves. At least this way they'd had enough warning to avoid any significant injuries or casualties.

He hadn't managed to retrieve the data as he'd intended, and wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or not. Something told him that even if he had succeeded, whatever was left of Zola in there would fight him tooth and nail, potentially even compromising JARVIS. And that would have been a disaster. As it was, Tony would have to check over his systems, given JARVIS' exposure to SHIELD's systems.

But on the other hand, even if they had captured five men who were likely HYDRA officers, they _were_ missing out on the opportunity to gain valuable intel, and Tony didn't like that, either, after all the effort they'd put into this mission.

Settling in to mull over the consequences of the day's events as he flew, Tony engaged the suit's autopilot, letting JARVIS handle the minutiae of navigation and propulsion. The remainder of the transatlantic flight was uneventful. Thankfully.

More drama and revelations like those he'd had in the server room would have been decidedly unwelcome, at that point. Bad enough that he'd had to find out about his dad like that. And Obie. Fucking _Obie_. He'd more or less gotten over that betrayal in the months afterward, soothing the hurt as best he could by salting and burning anything of the Ten Rings' that he could find, but this new information had made it sting all over again. Thankfully it had not been enough to cause a panic attack. Looking back, it was entirely possible that Obie had been involved in his father's death, too, Tony realised. It would fit the pattern. Obie had been his father's best friend, too, after all, rather than just a business partner.

Just to make things more complicated, that also meant that the Ten Rings and the Mandarin were connected to this clusterfuck, somehow. Even if it was only peripherally and because of financial reasons, that was bad enough. And it would be in keeping with Zola's spiel about formenting chaos. The Mandarin was quite good at that, and his scheming had nearly killed the President last Christmas.

And then there was the little issue of Zola's hints that he'd planned for their arrival. Dropping that comment about destroying an out-of-date backup in his encounter with Cap sure as hell implied he'd used a similar tactic today. There was pretty much guaranteed to be another copy of him somewhere. Maybe on Google's servers. They had so much traffic it was basically impossible to track everything effectively, and simple data wasn't nearly as closely scanned as web traffic. It only sucked up bandwidth when it was being up- or downloaded. And therefore finding any such copy would be like searching for a needle in a stack of needles tall enough to reach the moon, as long as it wasn't being accessed. And even if there _was_ detectable access, it would have to be continuous, or they would have to get incredibly fucking lucky. The sheer amount of traffic on Google's servers would be impossible to scan in its entirety.

That could very well be Zola's approach to the current situation, Tony decided, trying to get a handle on Zola's plan and HYDRA's. Hide in plain sight. It was what HYDRA had been doing for the last 70 years. Hide in SHIELD and grow like a cancer. Hide amongst the politicians with more radical views. The Republicans had been pushing hard for more programs like the Patriot Act in the last decade. Pushing for war in Iran to deal with ISIS and to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both of which had proven to be totally unfounded in the end.

Why, considering their success rate, should they change their approach now?

There was no incentive to do so. No reason.

Granted, Cap's little tantrum in DC had been a bit of a setback for them, and now they would have to restart Project Insight from scratch elsewhere. Without access to Tony's expertise.

But that wouldn't stop them for long. Hell. It had already been nearly two months, and they doubtless still had copies of those helicarrier blueprints. For all SHIELD knew, the next generation of Helicarriers was already being built somewhere in China or North Korea, with an eye toward getting Project Insight off the ground somewhere off American soil where it would be next to impossible to actually do anything to stop them without precipitating a war. It would not have come as any kind of surprise to Tony, at this point, and both of those outcomes favoured HYDRA. It was literally a win-win situation for them, at this point unless the remnants of SHIELD and the Avengers could come up with a way to stop the launch a second time.

It was a chilling thought.

Almost before he knew it, the quinjet was adjusting its trajectory and New York Harbor was coming into view. They were almost home, which meant another twenty minutes or so of flight time before they hit SHIELD's current well-hidden base of operations.

The debrief, such as it was, was a farce. Fury summarily summoned them, along with their captives, who were immediately hustled off for questioning. Cap wound up answering most of Fury's impatient questions, until they reached the point in the story where Tony and Clint had encountered Zola. There, Fury focused most of his attention on Clint, knowing Tony would only do everything he could to talk in circles.

What? Tony had to do something for entertainment, and it wasn't like Fury was paying him a dime, now that SHIELD was basically defunct. He wasn't even on retainer as a consultant anymore. A lot of the suspicions he had about Zola and HYDRA were pure speculation at this point, anyway. Clint was good at reporting facts, so Tony let him. The story sounded utterly surreal the way Clint told it, too.

Tony knew he went stony-faced when the topic of his father and Obie came up, but he said nothing. Cap and Natasha gave him sharp looks, but didn't interrupt Clint. Tony was surprised, but relieved. That was not a topic he wanted to broach around Fury. Not without a lot more preparation than he'd had today.

When Clint started describing their hasty exit from the building and the flight back across the Atlantic, Tony leaned back in his chair and tried to stretch the kinks out of his neck.

"So what you're telling me," Fury summarized, pausing for dramatic effect and looking right at Tony, "is that you were outwitted by a shitty computer simulation."

Tony snorted and rolled his eyes. "Not that shitty, Nick. It was realistic and creepy, and what it said sounded plausible, if not true."

"We're trusting HYDRA screensavers, now, _Iron Man_ ," Fury shot back, his tone making the question more of a demand.

"Not a chance," Steve broke in before Tony could formulate his scathing reply, "but we need to consider the possibility that whatever that copy of Zola said is true."

"What about your friend, Barnes?" Fury's expression hinted at something behind the mostly reasonable and logical question. Tony didn't like it. Fury was too good at his job to actually give anything away that he didn't want to, but every so often, if he wanted the team to come to what he considered the correct conclusion, he hinted. Occasionally he pushed. This felt like a set-up.

Like Fury didn't really care either way whether Barnes lived or died, but if he wound up with the Avengers he would at least be out of HYDRA's arsenal.

And Tony could tell Steve saw it, too. It showed in Steve's tightly leashed anger and aggressive body language. Fury knew beyond a doubt that Steve wouldn't back down on what he thought was the right thing to do. That much had been amply proven during the Project Insight debacle in DC.

A short silence fell and stretched, seeming to take up a lot more than the few heartbeats it actually lasted, expanding to fill the void like fire retardant insulation foam.

"We'll deal with that when he resurfaces," Natasha answered for Steve, somewhat reluctantly conceding the point. "If he doesn't want to be found, we won't find him. In the meantime, we need to re-evaluate our targets."

"While I can concede the strategic value of taking out HYDRA's bases, particularly the research facilities," Fury disagreed, "the timing is wrong. You will not continue with these vigilante actions."

"If we feel that there is a credible threat," Steve ground out, his patience pretty clearly reaching its limits, "we _will_ act, Director."

"Do that, and you can bet SHIELD will hang you out to dry. We do not currently have the resources to deal with the international crises your team consistently precipitates." With a last angry growl, Fury left the conference room, his long black coat flaring dramatically behind him.

Clint sighed, the set of his shoulders telegraphing resignation. "That went well."

Tony couldn't stop the harsh laugh that bubbled up. "You said it."

"Clint," Steve stood and tried to use his height advantage to project authority, "get to medical, and let them check you over. Tony, you too. I'll get Natasha to drag you there by your toenails if I have to."

Tony rolled his eyes, but allowed Steve to steer him out the conference room door and down the hall. He'd learned -- the hard way -- that Steve meant it. He might not have a lot of dignity left, with the life he'd lived, but he generally preferred to preserve what he had left of it.

Steve stood in the doorway and watched, too, as the SHIELD medical staff started their poking and prodding.

As though Tony would try to make an escape or misrepresent what the medics diagnosed him with. Just because he'd once -- _once_ \-- ignored their advice on how to deal with a mild concussion. Something he unfortunately had plenty of experience dealing with, and an area where he knew what worked for him over the average patient. The problem had been that Steve didn't, and had freaked out.

Granted, Tony had to admit, spending nearly 40 hours straight in the workshop hadn't been the best idea, but he'd needed to get the armour repaired and then Pepper had called to remind him that he had to finish three separate designs for the Board meeting scheduled for the following morning, in addition to one of the ongoing SHIELD contracts at the time. When he'd staggered up into the communal kitchen, Steve had taken one look at him and laid down the law. Or tried to, at least.

He'd seen sense, more or less, when Tony'd explained to him exactly what he'd done and why. When Tony had been pretty much back to normal eight hours later, he'd relaxed almost totally. But he'd started keeping a very close eye on Tony, "for his own good," and it had resulted in this standoff. Tony refused to give more ground, on the basis that he could take care of himself for fuck's sake, and while Steve accepted that part, he refused to let Tony abuse their understanding by making sure he knew exactly what was wrong at any given point.

Tony was starting to think he had Stockholm Syndrome. He could almost convince himself he liked it.

When the pair of medics finally gave up trying to find anything wrong with him and exited the exam room, Tony stood and pulled his shirt back on. "See, Cap, bumps and bruises."

"This time."

"How many times do I have to tell you? Contrary to popular belief, I know exactly what I'm doing."

"Sure, Tony. Come on," Steve put a hand on his shoulder and turned him toward the door of the room. "Let's get you back to the Tower. We could all use some downtime, and you most of all."

"I'm going to ignore that crack about my age, for now."

Steve had the cheek to smirk at him. "Well, you do it to me all the time. Turnabout is fair play."

"Yeah, whatever, old man. We'll see about that."

They would have continued like that all the way to the quinjet, but Natasha intercepted them halfway there. "Stark. Steve. We might have a problem. The man we thought was Strucker? He's not even a body double. We captured an LMD."

"Wait, how come he's Steve and I'm Stark," Tony tried to demand, stung just enough to protest. Both of them ignored him. Rude. "And what the hell are you talking about? There's no way that was a Life Model Decoy."

Natasha gave Tony a long level look. "It broke the standard cuffs we put on it, and pulled a pistol out of a compartment in its torso."

"What information did you get?" Steve broke in.

"Nothing useful. None of the others knew more than we got out of the leaked data and questioning the LMD was useless."

"What does Fury intend to do with it?" Steve wanted to know.

"It's already been slagged." Natasha seemed annoyed. "There are good odds that it contained tracking and recording devices. As it is, SHIELD security may have been compromised."

"You know, I really have to wonder about you guys," Tony interjected. "You have all the tech expertise in house that you could want," he pointed to himself, "and you don't bother to even ask?"

Steve huffed an annoyed breath at him. "You said yourself before New York that SHIELD didn't trust you. Why should they call you in now? Right after an unauthorised mission? I'm surprised that Fury even let Natasha tell us they slagged the thing."

"And you believe him?" Tony couldn't believe his ears. "He faked Coulson's death as well as his own. And he did it well enough to convince us all. Twice."

"I watched them do it," Natasha stepped between him and Steve. Judging by her expression, Fury faking his death and not telling her was clearly still something of a sore point between the two of them. "Let's get back to the Tower, boys. We have some planning to do."

Five minutes later, they were walking into the hangar bay, and Tony immediately spotted the idling quinjet. Natasha led them towards it, striding up to the front of the jet to settle in the copilot's seat next to Clint. Steve strapped into the seat farthest forward and closed his eyes.

Tony staked out a spot in the back, pulled the crate of his armour over to him, then started rummaging through it as the jet lifted off and zipped out the hangar bay doors. Against his expectations it was all there. Clint must have kept an eye on it for him. He'd have to remember to make the asshole some more of his favourite arrows. And also have JARVIS scan the armour for bugs, of course.

Ugh, a lot of the electronics in his bootjets looked a little melted around the edges after the strain he'd put on them during the battle, the escape, and then the blast at the end. It shouldn't have happened; he'd designed the bootjets to withstand much harsher treatment than that. But he'd have to check them over, and probably replace them, ASAP. One thing he definitely didn't want was for his propulsion to fail at the worst possible moment. Such as over the Atlantic. He suppressed a shudder. He might be able to keep from sinking with the repulsors in his hands -- he knew the math, and they had enough thrust capacity, but, Tony decided, he'd rather not test that theory anytime soon.

One close brush with death by drowning was more than enough, he thought with a shiver. He had no desire to repeat that little escapade he'd survived -- mostly through luck and JARVIS' intervention through inspired quick thinking -- last Christmas.

Tony forced himself to turn his attention to more immediate problems. Like that LMD. Not a lot of people knew how to build convincing ones. He did. As did Reed Richards, Victor von Doom, and a few others in the employ of groups like AIM or, based on the day's events, possibly HYDRA.

They were difficult to build and expensive. It took a lot of effort and time, and a lot of pricey materials. So why had HYDRA commissioned one for Strucker? And when? They'd effectively thrown away a substantial investment when they'd sent it right into the hands of the team.

He was no closer to an answer when the jet landed on the Tower's helipad. One of these days, Tony decided, he'd have to figure out where in the building he could cram a hangar for the thing. It really wasn't an ideal situation to have the jet outside like that, exposed to the weather, regardless of how robust its systems were.

"Tony," Steve broke into his thoughts as they made their way into the penthouse suite, Tony hauling along the crate with his armour in it, "what do you want to eat?"

Tony raised an eyebrow at him. It was an ongoing debate of theirs; Steve tended to default to pizza, while Tony did his best to convince him to try new things. "You're asking me to order you something you haven't tried?"

"Just pick something," Steve grumbled.

Whether it was an attempt to make him forget their earlier arguments -- which were nothing short of standard operating procedure, meantime -- or a prepaid favor -- which Steve claimed were only in his head, but Tony knew better -- didn't matter right now. "Fine. J, order up some of the good Thai. Enough for everyone currently present. Some hot dishes, some not. We'll see what Cap can handle."

"Am I to include Dr. Banner?"

"Nah, he's still on sabbatical in India, isn't he?"

"He returned mere hours ago, sir, while the team was debriefing."

"Ask him to join us, please, JARVIS, and include him in the food order," Steve decided out loud. Tony decided he was nixing that favor. "Clint, Natasha," Steve continued, "I'd like your suggestions on how to proceed."

"Right. You three go ahead," Tony nodded, "I'll just go--"

"Nowhere." Steve actually looked stern, this time. "I want your input as well. The armour can wait."

"But--"

"No, Tony."

"Hmph. Fine." Tony stalked over to the sofa and let himself flop down onto it, draping one arm over his face to shut out most of the late-afternoon light. "Wake me up when the food's here."

He could almost _hear_ Steve glaring at him. It was impressive.

A moment later, Clint walked over and settled in one of the chairs placed opposite the sofa, his footsteps easily identifiable thanks to the boots he always wore, and set his beer down on the coffee table. "So what are we discussing?"

Natasha's arrival was heralded only by a slight creak of leather as she sat in the other chair. Steve took a deep breath and stepped up to the table. "JARVIS?"

"Yes, Captain?"

"Could you bring up the list of HYDRA bases you and Tony got out of the leaked SHIELD data?"

"Certainly. Would you like a map of their approximate locations, as well?"

"That'd be great, thanks."

There was a short pause, and Tony debated joining in the discussion. He probably should. Steve would hold this over him for a week, or maybe more, if he didn't take part. No, he decided, longer. Much longer than a week. Biting back a put upon sigh, Tony dropped his arm to his side and opened his eyes. "So what's the play, Cap?"

"That's what we need to decide. Our hit on that base fifteen hours ago feels like we sprung a trap. A covey of highly ranked men who know nothing of value that wasn't already leaked, but make a nice strategic target? An LMD of Strucker? That copy of Zola's consciousness? HYDRA tried to set a very expensive snare for someone. But I don't think it was for us. That fight was far too easy."

Natasha considered that. "It's possible. But then who or what was that a trap for?"

"Anybody with access to the data you guys leaked two months ago could theoretically be the quarry," Clint snorted. "How are we supposed to narrow things down when that includes the entirety of the internet?"

Tony raised an eyebrow at Clint. "Excuse me, datamining that massive information set to get to the short list you see here wasn't easy. Getting to this list of bases took a lot more time and expertise than most internet users have. Not to mention a good chunk of JARVIS' processing power. And there wouldn't be many high value targets just sitting around on the Internet, either. Not of the kind that HYDRA would be willing to sacrifice an entire base and several officers to capture. You're looking at the information bureaus and spy agencies of the world as candidates, here. Most likely HYDRA wanted to lure out someone in the Red Room or whichever of their nemeses they're feuding with this month."

"If you really want to know who they're trying to trap," Clint put in, "the best course of action would be to hit the rest of these bases as well. Odds are good that the rest of these are also traps, and probably for the same person or group of people."

"It could also be a way to make us overconfident," Natasha spoke quietly. "Make the level of resistance at the first base almost nonexistent, so that their target expects a milk run mission at the second. Then use their heavy hitters."

"Or," Tony retorted, "it could be none of the above. We're _assuming_ it's a trap. What if it's just that they were emptying that base to retrofit it as something else and reuse it? That would be enough reason to empty the base and have officers around. Could be that we just happened to hit on an inspection or something."

"Sir," JARVIS spoke up. "The requested food has arrived, and Dr. Banner is on his way up."

"I'll get the food," Clint offered, standing and stretching.

Steve nodded reluctantly. "Alright. We'll table this discussion until you get back."

Bruce showed up just as Clint disappeared into the elevator, looking like he'd hastily showered and dressed, and the conversation shifted, Steve and Natasha asking him about his trip and getting him up to date on the current situation. Tony kept quiet for the most part, and toyed with a holographic projection of the damage to his bootjets, more interested in the armour repairs than rehashing the discussion.

"And what about you, Tony?"

Bruce's voice shattered his focus, and Tony gave JARVIS the command to save and close the file with a sigh, throwing his arm back over his face. "What about me, Bruce?"

"How is everything? Last I heard you and Pepper were in talks to expand the medical research division in California."

"Yeah, that went through. Big success, as you probably guessed. Numbers are up across the board, and the Board is happy with that."

Bruce must have heard something in his tone. His eyes narrowed. "But?"

"But my other projects haven't had the same success rate." Tony paused and glanced around. Natasha and Steve were talking quietly, leaning against the wet bar across the room. Clint was still nowhere to be seen. Tony shifted enough to scrub at his face with his hands, the scrape of stubble catching against his palms reminding him that he needed to shave and probably sleep as well. He reminded himself that Bruce wasn't going to judge him. "Pepper and I broke up. It's been... tough."

Bruce nodded like he'd expected something of the sort. Maybe he had. The cracks in his relationship with Pepper had been obvious to everyone but him, apparently.

Not that that was news. He was bad at relationships.

Then again, maybe he needed to look at Extremis one more time. It had been the final wedge driving them apart in the end. They were still on good terms, but it stung to think about, even now that they'd officially called it off. Tony forced away thoughts of their last outing as a couple three months ago.

It took a long few seconds but Bruce spoke again. "And are you coping?"

"More or less," Tony groaned, not sure why the honesty bubbled up out of his sternum somewhere. "Usually. Working with the team helps. More than I thought it would. But this new HYDRA clusterfuck is going to be... bad."

Another nod. "Probably. Think you're ready?"

Tony shrugged. "Doesn't matter what I think. What matters is whether I fuck it up or not."

Before Bruce could answer, the elevator doors slid open, and Clint stepped out, six bags of takeout in his hands. "Chow time," he called out, breaking the mood. He immediately had Natasha's attention and Steve's, as he brought the whole lot of it over to the coffee table and set it down. Bruce huffed, amused, and prodded at Tony's shoulder until he moved. "Come on, Tony. Move over."

Shifting his legs off the sofa and sitting up, Tony stretched and pulled over a bag of takeout to rummage through it as Steve settled on his other side, eyeing the food as though it would bite back. Tony smirked at him and continued sorting through food orders. Anything not obviously from his usual got set on the table. Bruce immediately claimed the spicy curry and pad thai. Natasha picked up a carton of rice and something Tony was pretty sure contained squid. He turned to Steve and ignored whatever Clint was doing, picking a carton of fairly innocuous Khanom chin namya[2] out of the pile.

He turned to Steve and held it out. "Here. Try this for size, and we'll see how far we get."

Steve eyed it warily. "What is it?"

"Thai rice noodles served with a fish sauce called nam ya. Perfectly harmless. If you can handle that, you graduate to trying the Kaeng phanaeng.[2]"

After the first experimental bites, Steve all but inhaled the food. And the phanaeng disappeared pretty quickly too. There wasn't much conversation, while they ate. All of them were tired, though some hid it better than others.

In their discussion after dinner, they didn't come to a consensus on how to proceed, either. They didn't have enough solid information for that. Eventually, Steve decided that the only real way forward out of this mess was to continue as planned. And the rest of them were willing to see what happened if they did.

Tony couldn't help thinking that Steve defaulted to that strategy too much. Full speed ahead and damn the consequences was generally not a great idea. At least Tony thought things through before he made the choice between bad and worse.

Usually.

In the middle of a fight, there wasn't normally time for thought... though there had been that one fight with a mutant who could slow time.

Tony shook his head to clear it, watching the rest of the team disperse to their rooms. Steve stepped around the coffee table and stopped in front of him. Tony looked up and met his eyes, suddenly feeling blurred at the edges.

"Come on, Tony," Steve pulled him up by his elbow. "You look dead on your feet."

"Wasn't on my feet until you put me there."

Steve chuckled at him, not letting go until Tony was balanced. "Sure."

A wide yawn had him stumbling against Steve, though, and a very well-muscled arm wrapped around his waist. With a content noise, Tony let himself relax against Steve's side. If he'd thought he had half a chance, he might have flirted harder. This felt so nice.

Then again, having one more actual friend was also good, he decided as Steve pushed him down to sit on his own bed.

He'd had so few of those in his life.

Automatically, he started stripping off his clothes. Steve stayed only long enough for him to reach for the button of his jeans, then disappeared. "See you in the morning, Tony."

He was gone before Tony found a reply. Tony stared after him for a long moment, wondering whether he'd imagined the awkwardness and blush.

Thirty-six hours later, the armour repaired and the bootjets upgraded to withstand higher ambient temperatures, Tony was pacing the quinjet back over the Atlantic. This time they were off to Tunisia. That was the next most interesting base in terms of the research that was supposedly going on there. A lot of the rumour was related to memory alterations. The term 'mindwipe machine' had come up repeatedly, though there was no information on what exactly it was supposed to be. Well, beyond the obvious.

Nick wasn't going to be too happy about this little jaunt.

Whatever. Tony had to admit that Cap was right about one thing; now that they were in this mess, they needed to get back out, and that meant doing something other than ignoring the problem. And, added bonus, he could always point to this little series of missions next time Cap started giving him hell over going after the Ten Rings.

And this gave him an excellent excuse to try out his newly redesigned bootjets, in a desert environment. It didn't get much better in terms of stress tests, and his team would be around to help if he really got in over his head. Win-win.

This time, though, the base was already partly trashed when they arrived.

It immediately sent Cap into caution mode: Tony got deputised to do a flyover and see what he could spot in the way of bogeys, enemies, and possible ambushes, while the rest of the team held back for the moment.

The desert stretched out for miles in every direction, gently rolling sand dunes stark and shining yellow-white in the sunshine. "I'm coming up with nothing but empty hectares of Sahara in the immediate vicinity, Cap," he reported. "There's nothing moving down there within a mile's radius, right now. Either HYDRA trashed their own base and bugged out, or someone helped them and then left us the smouldering remains."

"Hold position for now, Iron Man," came the reply. Cap sounded unsurprised. "Widow, Hawkeye, with me. Dr. Banner, hold tight here, for now. Keep an eye on the jet. We'll let you know if we need any help from the other guy."

A series of affirmatives sounded down the line, and Tony kept watch from his position fifty meters above the base, JARVIS' tracking and image analysis algorithms a comforting set of extra eyes. Nothing happened for four long minutes.

Then, just as he blinked, the reflected light coming off the dunes hurting his eyes even through the filter JARVIS imposed on it over the HUD, the AI spoke up. "Sir, it may be wise to dodge left."

"Huh?"

Before JARVIS could reply, the crack of a bullet hitting the join of the armour between his arm and his torso surprised the hell out of him. "Shit," Tony cursed, hitting his bootjets and jetting up sharply, "where is he?"

A chorus of questions came over the comms, but Tony ignored them for a moment, instead using hand signals to tell them he was fine so his AI could talk.

"Ballistics trajectory analysis places the shooter at over two kilometers away, sir." The AI helpfully magnified the display on the HUD as much as possible, but at that distance, not even the HD cameras he'd used for the displays could resolve detail. It was a person, wearing lots of black, carrying a sniper rifle and hurrying away from his previously concealed spot to find a new position to shoot from. That much was clear. But without any idea who it was...

"Cap," Tony reported, "there's a shooter something like a mile and a half away in the dunes. No idea who it is, but it looks more like he's running away from the base than towards it."

"Leave him, then, unless he tries again. Could just be a local crack shot."

Tony doubted that was the case, but didn't voice his thoughts. Instead he kept an eye on the shooter as well as he could. While a bullet from a sniper rifle wouldn't do much damage to him, especially from this distance, it could easily take out one of the unarmoured members of the team.

Really, it was impressive that the guy had hit him at all. Whether the fact that the bullet had hit a weak point in the armour was a result of intent on the shooter's part or pure chance was yet to be determined. Conditions were good, though, the wind a barest breath of air and the air dry and clear. The reflected glare from the dunes affected Tony more than the shooter on the ground, and the gunman also had the sun at his back.

The biggest deciding factor left was skill.

"Widow, Hawkeye," Cap went on, "we'd better go make sure the base is clear and see what we can salvage."

As the trio entered the base, the sniper disappeared behind a sand dune and didn't reappear for a long enough while that Tony considered going out to look for him, rather than keeping watch over the base.

While he debated, a second shot rang out, the crack only sounding a full half-second after the bullet had impacted precisely between the eye-slits of his mask. An obvious taunt from an obviously highly trained professional.

"Cap," he cued the comm, "that was another shot. I'm going to look for our shooter."

"Copy, Iron Man. The base appears to be empty and mostly destroyed."

Without another word, Tony took off, letting himself fall forward out of his hover and making a beeline for the shooter's last known position. To his frustration, there was no sign of the shooter there. JARVIS' algorithms again detected nothing in the immediate vicinity, and Tony couldn't spot anyone, either. For a few long moments, Tony circled the area in a wide arc, silent and intent on his quarry, before a dust plume in the distance caught his attention. "JARVIS?"

"It appears to be a 4x4, sir," the AI pulled up a zoomed in frame on the HUD. "At this distance I cannot identify it conclusively, based on the input from the suit's cameras. Nor is it possible to confirm the identity of the driver."

Tony scowled, momentarily indecisive. He didn't want to go much farther afield and chance not being able to get back in time to help his team if they needed him, but he very much wanted to know who had shot at him. This was no ordinary man taking pot shots. The second shot had all the earmarks of a military-trained sniper with a quality gun.

"What if I--"

"Iron Man," Cap's voice interrupted over the comm, "come on back. We're done here."

"But the shooter's still out there."

"Forget him. We have bigger problems. There's not much left of this place, but we did find some equipment that we might be able to salvage and identify."

Distracted by the prospect of HYDRA tech to pull apart and analyse, Tony took one more look at the disappearing vehicle, and turned back to the base. He set aside the mystery of the shooter for the moment. Cap had a point. The shooter -- probably the driver of that vehicle, given that there was nothing else for miles around -- had turned tail and run. Anyone actually after any member of the team would have had support and also stuck around to fight things out.

Not to mention that Tony still didn't like the idea of SHIELD getting their hands on HYDRA tech. Far better that he be around to stake a claim and haul it into his workshop in the Tower rather than letting them try to figure this shit out.

The damage he found when he got to the base was even worse than he'd been expecting. There wasn't much to the place, and what there was had been thoroughly mangled. In some cases twice over.

The base was also quite small. A few facilities like the mess hall and barracks and toilets on the first basement floor, and the lower level, where the experiments were done. The upper level was totally trashed. Nothing was left standing. The lower...well, it looked like whoever had dealt with the upper half had given the lower a hasty once-over, ransacked it, and left. A decent portion of it looked intact, albeit strewn across the tiled floor. Papers, surgical implements, medical supplies -- including opiate painkillers, and two very dented file cabinets were strewn about the room Tony eventually located Cap in.

There was some contraption that resembled a dentist's chair roughly at the center of the room, looking like it had somehow survived intact, but what caught Tony's attention were the heavy duty leather and metal restraints on the arms and footrest. That was clearly not intended for a willing subject, whatever it was.

Cap was standing just inside the door, surveying the room and probably ranking its contents in order of strategic value if retrieved. "Iron Man," he greeted, a relieved note in his voice. "Hawkeye and Widow went to retrieve Banner and the quinjet. We need to sort through this mess and figure out what to carry home."

"Well, I'd say we definitely want the papers and the chair," Tony replied. "The rest looks like standard surgical suite equipment."

"Right. I'll deal with the papers," Cap suggested. "See if you can find a way to get that chair loose. It's bolted down pretty damn securely."

"You do know," Tony said conversationally as Cap bent to start gathering up the scattered papers, "that we have no way of knowing what, if anything, is missing. Someone could easily have already grabbed the interesting stuff and left us a pile of junk."

"Are you willing to take that chance?" Cap asked mildly.

"Not on your life." Turning to his task, Tony went down on one knee to determine what he needed to do to remove the chair intact. A tile cracked under his weight with a muted crunch. Tony ignored it. The base of the chair resembled a dentist's chair just as much as the top. It rested on a two inch high block of concrete that was pretty clearly built into the floor, and had been modified with several heavy gauge steel plates. The chair was attached to the floor via a set of six bolts with diameters of an inch, which sunk through the steel plates and directly into the cement below.

Gripping one of the bolts with his gauntlet, Tony tried simply twisting. To his surprise it gave easily after the initial turn. This... thing... had clearly been well-maintained, if even the bolts securing it to the floor hadn't rusted in place. Rather than worry about that now, though, he used the armour's augmented strength to loosen the other five bolts, gathering them in a scavenged plastic bag, and attaching them to one of the armrests with some surgical tape.

The chair lifted free of the cement block with a grinding sound and a small puff of concrete dust after that. It revealed some plug-and-socket electrical connections that were simple to disconnect.

"I'm good to go with the chair, Cap."

"Nearly done," came the reply as he stuffed a sheaf of papers back into a folder more or less at random. "Once we've got everything, we're going back up to ground level."

"Widow," Tony cued the comm line, "you three ready to get out of here?"

"Waitin' on you," Hawkeye snarked back in her place.

"Okay, okay. Keep your quiver on," Tony shot back, smirking when the quip got an amused sound out of Cap. "We're wrapping things up in here. Five minutes."

"Copy," Widow's calm voice sounded. "Current position is a quarter mile south of the base entrance."

"We'll be there," Cap closed the conversation, "out."

True to his word, he shoved the last few files into the cabinet under two minutes later, picked the thing up, and caught Tony's eye. "Ready, Iron Man?"

"Lead the way, Cap." Tony picked the chair up by its seat, then hitched it up so that he could brace it against one of the armour's hips. It was very unwieldy, and would make getting back up to ground level without damaging the thing complicated. "I may have to blast out a few doors, though."

"Do what you need to." Cap turned and kicked the door open. It swung on its hinges easily, and stayed stuck open when the knob impacted the concrete wall on the far side hard enough to leave behind a hole. Tony didn't bother to hold back his amused snort. Cap didn't react beyond an answering smirk.

They made their way up to the destroyed upper level much more slowly than they'd descended. Navigating the maze of destroyed rooms and corridors was much more complicated with the chair in his arms, Tony was unsurprised to note. They managed without incident, though.

When they were within sight of the base entrance, Clint came over the comm. "Guys, you might want to get a move on. Widow intercepted a signal that looks like it was supposed to activate the base's self-destruct. She managed to block it, but I'm betting they'll try again, and soon. If you don't want a repeat of Colmar, I'd recommend getting your asses in gear."

Tony swore colorfully. "Time to get the fuck out of here."

"Roger," Cap snapped out into the comm as he shifted the cabinet around so he could run mostly unencumbered, "wilco. Requesting pickup at the door in thirty seconds."

"Copy, Cap. Thirty seconds."

Tony decided he would be too slow on his feet. The armour wasn't designed for running, or even walking, really. "On your left, Cap. I've gotta fly." Cuing his bootjets, he waited only just long enough to get the acknowledging nod from Cap before he blasted forward, pouring on power to compensate for the heavy chair he carried.

As he broke out into the bright sunlight again, the HUD went momentarily bright white before JARVIS could correct for the difference in lighting. When his 'vision' cleared, Tony made directly for the incoming quinjet. The loading ramp at the back opened as he approached, and he flew in, dropping the chair in the cargo area and leaving it to Banner to strap it in, knowing that it was, at least, heavy enough not to slide around much.

Satisfied that the chair would be dealt with, he took off again, launching himself back into the air to keep an eye on Cap. The man appeared just as he got eyes back on the base door. Tony cut the bootjets, letting himself drop down toward the sand in controlled freefall. "Need a lift, Cap?"

"No, but it'd be appreciated nonetheless, Iron Man," Cap shifted the cabinet to one arm and held out his other, allowing Tony to slide in underneath it and wrap an arm around his waist as Cap stepped up onto the boot of the armour. Flying was a bit awkward, with the weight of the filing cabinet dragging them both forward, situated in Cap's arm as it was, but after a few meters Tony managed to compensate.

Seconds later they were on the quinjet, and stowing the cabinet next to the chair. Before they'd finished securing it for transport, a low rumble grew slowly more audible over the quinjet engines. Tony turned and stepped over to the loading ramp, looking out and back toward the base, just in time to see it slowly implode with a puff of sand. It left behind a sizable sinkhole, but, Tony knew, it would fill with sand in under a week and leave no trace behind.

"Well, that was almost anticlimactic," Tony observed.

"Would have sucked if you'd still been inside," Clint replied with a laugh.

"True," Cap conceded. "But we've gotten what we came for, so I'm counting this a success."

"We have no idea what we've got," Tony disagreed. "Let's hold off on the celebrations until we have some idea what the hell we salvaged."

"He has a point, Captain," Bruce spoke up. "It'll take some time to go through all these files, and figure out just what that chair was for."

Cap nodded, acknowledging the truth of that, albeit a little reluctantly. "How long do you think it will take?"

Tony considered the question for a moment. "To scan the papers into JARVIS' database, and collate the pages into coherent documents, probably about six hours. To sort through the contents? That depends on how much we've got and what it is. If all we got is a bunch of shopping lists, a couple of hours, max. If we've got something more interesting? Possibly up to a week."

"And the chair?"

Bruce glanced at it and winced. "Difficult to tell, without Tony's workshop, and JARVIS' instrument suite. Depending on the complexity, I'd say three days to a week."

Steve nodded thoughtfully. "And SHIELD--"

Tony cut him off with a sharp gesture, putting up his faceplate and holding out a hand. "Not on comms, Cap. That part's sensitive."

Slowly, Cap reached up and pulled off his helmet, popping out the insert that went over his ear and had his comm in it. He handed it to Tony, and watched as Tony pulled open the filing cabinet and stuffed the piece into one of the folders, muffling it as effectively as possible in paper, metal, and ambient noise.

"Okay. Now," Tony put up his faceplate and caught Steve's eyes. This was off the books; he wasn't Cap right now. "I'll put this bluntly, Steve. SHIELD is not in a place where they can support us in this. Not after the clusterfuck you and Nick set off in DC two months ago. And you heard Nick after the last mission we pulled on our own. He said he was gonna hang us out to dry, and he meant it. We can't count on SHIELD for help on the analysis, or politically if we fuck up and cause too much damage. Luckily I'm loaded, so the financials of actually getting these missions off the ground aren't a problem. I can fund this little crusade out of my own pockets. After what Zola said to me in Alsace, I have as much reason to go after HYDRA as you do. If not more."

Steve's jaw firmed, but he conceded the point with good grace. "So what's the play, Tony? If we're going to do this with any hope of success, we've got to do it together."

"Well," Tony prevaricated a little. "I don't know yet. A lot depends on what that chair is supposed to do and what's in those papers. You saw the mission brief JARVIS put together for us. What you didn't see was the notes on the research HYDRA was doing here. A lot of notes on memory manipulation and attempts to duplicate your serum. One or two mentions of biomechanics and prosthetics."

Steve put the pieces together. Tony could see the tumblers fall into place. "You mean--"

"I don't know for sure, but I suspect that HYDRA may have been working on the Winter Soldier's programming at the two bases we've hit already," Tony confirmed.

"And you think they're trying to catch him with these lures."

It wasn't a question. Tony answered anyway. "There's a good chance that that's the case. He's not been anywhere on the radar since your scuffle in DC, and he's a valuable enough asset that HYDRA would risk a lot to get him back, if he's gone AWOL. He's also good enough at what he does that he could have taken out the upper half of that base we just ransacked."

"We have to make sure they don't get him."

Bruce smiled apologetically. "I'm pretty sure that means we would have to take him in, instead, and that sounds like a terrible plan."

Clint huffed a laugh, chiming in. "No kidding. I have literally no desire to go up against that man. Pretty sure Nat feels the same."

Natasha let the silence stretch out before she spoke. "I helped you against him in DC, Steve. I will again, if you must go up against him, but know this. He will not remember you. He will treat you like any other enemy trying to capture him. He did two months ago, and he will again."

A few pieces fell together in his mind, and Tony added, "if I had to guess, he was today's shooter."

"Wait, what?" Clint's incredulous tone spoke volumes.

"Caught me right between the eyes," Tony told their pilot. "From over a mile and a half away. Not many that could make that shot."

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, and his tone went tight. "And you kept that to yourself why?"

"Because I only just put it together. And I have no confirmation. He was too far away for my HUD cameras to pick him up clearly," Tony defended himself. "From that distance his bullets couldn't hurt me. Even at close range, he'd have trouble. But you were right, and the base was our priority. So I didn't go after him."

Natasha made a disbelieving noise. "So you're saying he was a mile and a half away, and we missed him."

Bruce cleared his throat before he spoke, sounding dryly amused, "I think I prefer it that way. For now at least. It would be better if we could persuade him to come with us willingly."

"Think us helping him take out these bases will win him over, Widow?" Tony wanted to know.

She considered it. "I don't know. Maybe. It certainly won't make him angrier at us."

Steve cut off the discussion firmly. "We're not letting SHIELD or HYDRA get him. How doesn't matter."

Tony snorted. "We'll see, Steve. First we have to _find_ the guy."

No one contested the point.

Rather than go to SHIELD headquarters on their arrival back in New York, Clint set the quinjet down on the Tower helipad, and they unloaded their salvage, taking advantage of the freight elevator adjoining the hexagonal platform. Tony was quite happy he'd had the forethought to put it there. Trying to get to the other freight elevator, deep in the center of the tower, with the armour and the chair weighing him down, would have been a risky endeavour. The floors weren't all reinforced enough to handle the load.

Clint, Natasha, and Bruce peeled off to go into the Tower proper, leaving Steve to help him. Tony shrugged mentally. Whatever. They could handle it. The others would really only be in the way, at this point. He could call in Bruce later to help with picking apart the data.

In the end, it took less time than he'd expected to get everything down to the workshop, their path smoothed by JARVIS, who'd anticipated that they'd need to open the double doors Tony used to move heavy equipment into the workshop. When the chair was situated under JARVIS' sensors, the AI automatically started his analysis protocols. Tony nodded, satisfied, and turned to the filing cabinet. Steve was leaning against it, his weight on one foot and the elbow he'd planted on its flat top, watching as Tony arranged things to his liking, then clomped over to the armouring station to allow JARVIS to peel him out of the suit. Once it had been safely stored away, Tony turned back to Steve.

"Here, Steve," he got his teammate's attention. "I have a document scanner for stuff like this."

Well, more accurately, he had it to scan in the ridiculously long and intricate NDAs and license agreements his lawyers came up with, and some of the more detailed government contracts, which they insisted on sending in paper format. But it would work for this, too, and JARVIS was already used to scanning and parsing documents scanned in this way. It was the optimal solution. Sitting around and scanning in the pages one by one would only take about a year.

"The paper gets loaded in here," he pointed out an angled tray at the upper side of the machine, "and comes out down there, but don't worry about collecting it all. Once it's digitised, I'll have it destroyed."

Steve nodded. "That's probably a good idea. But first, you're coming upstairs to eat and sleep."

"It's way too early to sleep," Tony disagreed, "but I could go for a cheeseburger."

They ate, joined by the rest of the team, collectively ignored calls from Hill and Fury, then dispersed again. Bruce disappeared into his lab with promises to come help with the decoding of the HYDRA notes, if the search turned up any interesting documents. Steve stood with a slightly faraway look in his eyes, then made his way down to the gym on the floor below. Clint and Natasha went to the SHIELD base, probably to answer to Fury. Tony suspected there wouldn't be too much in the way of lectures, this time. They hadn't damaged anything except the HYDRA base. Not like the first base, which had taken out a large chunk of nature preserve in Alsace when Zola had tripped the self-destruct.

Tony watched them all go, then turned to his private elevator. "The workshop, J."

"Of course, Sir."

Losing himself in the work was comparatively easy. Familiar.

Dumping a first ream of paper into the scanner, he waited just long enough for JARVIS to fire up the machine then turned to the chair. "You got those scans for me?"

"It appears to be a modified version of a dental chair," JARVIS confirmed his earlier suspicions as an X-ray image of the contraption and an approximate schematic representation came up in front of Tony in hologram.

Tony pointed to the makeshift-looking arm and oddly shaped contact pads. "That looks familiar."

"I have not been able to determine the precise purpose of the equipment replacing the lamp and lamp arm. However, it contains some crude electromagnetic components, a wireless interface tuned to operate in the microwave frequency range, and a very heavily altered TENS system[3]."

Something told him that HYDRA hadn't been using the thing for pain relief. Tony scowled. Refocusing, he mused, "with that big of a transmission area, it has to have a huge power supply somewhere, or be very short-range."

"You are likely correct, sir," JARVIS agreed. His tone held what sounded like disgust, when he added, "there are several anatomical locations where the use of TENS electrodes are contraindicated, including over the eyes, due to the risk of increasing intraocular pressure, and transcerebrally."

Tony could see where that line of thinking was leading. The position of the TENS system on the easily positioned lamp arm and the shape of the pads themselves heavily implied that this device had been used in exactly the medically inadvisable way the AI had suggested. "It is heavily modified, though, J," Tony reiterated. "I'm getting the impression they weren't using it as the manual described, and that throws standard contraindication warnings out the window. Got any cross-references with memory therapy techniques?"

"No, sir."

Tony spun the projection idly as he considered the nature of the chair. "It's gotta be for something else, then. Sure, HYDRA didn't give a damn about patient safety," he rubbed at the nape of his neck as he thought, "but they wouldn't be trying to kill them, either. So what were they using this for?"

"Perhaps, sir, that could be explained by the missing pieces of the puzzle?"

The AI had a point. They would hopefully know more once the mountain of paper in the filing cabinet had been scanned and electronically collated. But first, he needed to go over the chair with a fine toothed comb. Check it for chemical residues, blood, the works.

It felt like minutes later when Tony turned and noted that the document tray of his machine was empty. "You got any collated files yet, JARVIS?"

"Nothing of note. So far these documents appear to be composed mostly of inventory files and requisition forms."

That sounded like the filing cabinet was a dud. A decoy meant to distract them and keep them busy.

"Well, keep looking." Tony dumped the next ream of paper into the tray with a disgusted expression. A glance at the clock revealed that somehow more than four hours had evaporated. He'd lost more time to attempting to analyse that chair than he'd thought.

A knock at his door, translated into a chime audible through his music by JARVIS, distracted him at an opportune moment. Bruce was here.

"Let him in," Tony requested.

When Bruce stepped into the workshop, the AI turned down the music and Tony turned to greet him. "Bruce! Come to help out?"

"Not this time. Dinner is in about twenty minutes. Cap sent me down to make sure you joined us. I think he wants to know what you've found."

Tony groaned, leaning against his worktable with one hip and letting his eyes fall shut as he briefly let his head fall back. Opening them again proved more difficult than he'd expected. "So far we've come up empty."

Bruce gathered up another sheaf of papers and stuffed them into the document scanner. "Have you tried the memory research angle yet?"

Tony snorted. "That was almost the first thing I thought of, but what we have here," he waved at the chair, "resembles none of the currently used and FDA-approved methods. Or the methods currently in clinical trials. And you can forget the NIH proposal databases. There's nothing relevant in there either."

"So HYDRA was doing their own research." Bruce looked troubled, and Tony didn't blame him.

"And it looks more than a little unethical," Tony agreed, his tone caught between anger and disgust. "Just what you'd expect from a group of radical ex-Nazis."

Visibly doing his best to shake off his unease, Bruce turned back to the workshop door. "Come on, Tony. Before Steve decides to come looking for us."

Tony gave in, setting the work aside for the moment then adding one more ream of paper to the document scanner. "Save and shut down the analysis suite, JARVIS. Let us know if you come across anything good in the paperwork."

"Of course, sir."

As they headed out to the elevator, Bruce added. "I made curry."

Tony grinned. "How spicy is it?"

The question got a chuckle out of the other scientist. "Not very. You know how Clint and Steve are about things that set their tongues on fire."

The remainder of the trip up was spent in companionable silence, and dinner was the usual riot of people talking over one another. Tony could almost forget that they were hunting down history's most infamous sniper, and simultaneously trying to decode some seriously dark HYDRA research.

After they'd eaten and before they could disperse, Steve called them all to order and, as Bruce had warned Tony, asked what they'd found so far.

Simultaneously glad of Bruce's warning but knowing he would have still been utterly unsurprised without it, Tony sat back in his chair with a frustrated noise. "Not a whole hell of a lot to _be_ found, I suspect, Steve. That chair makes no sense without having the other pieces of the puzzle. I could offer some speculation, but nothing definite. The papers in that filing cabinet? Those seem to have been a decoy. JARVIS has found nothing pertaining to the chair or Barnes yet."

Steve considered that for a moment. "And your speculations?"

"Are totally unfounded, and very likely just as incorrect," he admitted.

Clint snorted. "What happened to the vaunted Stark genius?"

"You do better, if you can," Tony shot back, irritated. Shaking his head, he went on. "The thing was probably used for whatever fucked up experiments they were doing. That much is pretty obvious, judging by the restraints and reinforced construction. I'd say most likely for whatever trials they were doing to reverse engineer the super serum dad and Erskine developed in the good old sepia colored days of 1942."

Natasha looked him in the eye, serious. "You said that HYDRA was doing work on the serum and memory alteration. They tend to keep meticulous files on their 'science', fancying that they're keeping proper lab notebooks."

Steve looked troubled and far away. "Right. The Howling Commandoes recovered a lot of them, during the war."

"So where did they end up," Clint asked. "The assholes left behind a filing cabinet's worth of useless shit, apparently, and we fell for it."

Tony nodded approvingly. "A very good question. I have no idea. If I had to guess, they moved those out with the rest of the important equipment. Any scientist worth employing would make damn sure they never let their research burn or get stolen."

"So you're suggesting that to get the books we need to get to the HYDRA scientists doing the work," Bruce had a thoughtful expression. "How would we do that?"

"Well," Tony replied, some pieces falling together in his mind, "we can try datamining the leaked information Natasha put out there, and see if any names correlate with the bases on our list. We have some captives at SHIELD who know a lot about logistics and troop movements, but not much else."

Suddenly reminded of his encounter with Zola, Tony realised that he hadn't brought up some of his suspicions with the team. "Hey, Natasha," he added, "what are the odds that HYDRA managed to control the information you leaked before you got a hold of it?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Slim to none. Why?"

"Well, both bases we've hit so far have had minimal security, if any, and both feel like breadcrumbs we're meant to follow somewhere," Tony admitted. "I can't shake the feeling that this is too damn easy."

Clint rolled his eyes. "You have a weird definition of easy, Stark."

Natasha was visibly weighing the idea and consequences. "It's just barely possible. It would have taken some very good planning and hacking, though. I didn't see any interference when I released those SHIELD files to the internet."

Dubious, Steve cut the discussion off. "Our best course of action is still to take out the remaining bases on the list. Possible isn't definite, and unless any of us finds proof to support that theory, I'm going to have to table the idea. We're planning to hit the next base in under 24 hours. Get some rest, team."

The night passed in a restless haze that approximated sleep but yielded no respite. Tony woke the next morning half wishing he didn't have to prepare the armour. His AI's voice penetrated the mental fog, though.

"Good morning, sir. It is 7:30am. Weather conditions in New York are currently holding steady at 82 degrees, and a rainstorm is forecast for later this afternoon."

He pulled himself out of bed with a tired groan. "JARVIS?"

"Yes, sir?"

"You finished with the armour maintenance and resupply?"

"Resupply is complete. Maintenance will take another estimated twenty minutes. Might I recommend breakfast?"

Tony dug in his closet for clothes he didn't give a fuck about. He'd only be taking them back off soon to put the armour on, anyhow. "Fire up the coffee maker, would you, J?"

"There is some coffee waiting in the communal kitchen, sir."

"Steve up," he asked around a yawn.

"As per his usual schedule, the Captain went for his morning run and came back in time for breakfast. If you were to proceed down the communal kitchen, you would also find a selection of food items."

Well why not. Maybe food would wake him up properly. Much as he loved coffee, on its own and for its own merits, it worked far better on a full stomach than an empty one. He'd worked out that particular optimisation years ago.

When he arrived in the kitchen, he pulled a barstool over to the island and slumped down to put his face into the crook of his elbow. Steve chuckled at him. Tony mustered the energy to flip him off and resolved to force him to try something really outlandish for his next culinary adventure.

A few seconds later, though, a mug was set onto the marble island with a quiet click. It was followed by the louder almost-clatter of a plate and silverware. "Here," Steve said quietly. "Breakfast."

He could smell eggs and hash browns. Nevertheless, it took a moment for Tony to force himself upright. Eventually he managed. Slowly, almost mechanically, he started to eat. The food was still fresh and the combination of flavours somehow brought awareness back.

Steve eyed him, openly appraising. "Did you even go to bed last night?"

"Couldn't sleep."

Steve raised an eyebrow at him. "If I didn't know you routinely pulled all-nighters, I'd be tempted to bench you. You're riding in the quinjet today, Tony."

His autopilot would have kept him in the air just fine. Tony resisted the urge to sigh or argue. Steve wouldn't budge on this point. Tony knew that much from experience. It would give him a chance to try to catch some more shut-eye. And that was almost certainly Steve's endgame, anyway. Taking another bite, he mumbled, "fine, whatever, mom."

The remainder of the morning passed more or less according to routine. Clint sauntered into the communal kitchen about ten minutes later, picked up the carafe of coffee that Tony had just drained, and looked at it mournfully. "Awww, coffee," he whined, staring down into the empty container.

"Make some more," Tony replied, finally feeling more like himself.

Natasha breezed past, plucking the glass carafe out of Clint's hands and deftly sliding it back under the machine. Under a minute later, the next batch was brewing.

Steve watched them all, his expression somewhere between amusement and wistfulness.

Rather than ask him what that was all about, Tony stood and made his escape. Fed and caffeinated, it was time to go ready the suit and make any last minute preparations. This base was located in the Crim, and there were good odds that their presence would draw the attention of the Russians, the Ukrainians, the Turks, and any other interested parties. The political tensions in that area were already running high, and had been for years. The Russians wanted it, because it would give them a strategically important warm water port on the Black Sea, and there was enough pro-Russian sentiment in the area that they could probably simply take it, if they wanted. With or without Ukrainian permission. Naturally, this meant that the Ukrainians and the Turks were nervous. Neither of them wanted a Russian coup to upset the delicate order of things in the region. The Cold War might be over, but the tensions were still there.

It had already happened once, and the lingering resentment in the region could easily be reignited if the destruction of this HYDRA base caught the attention of more than just the locals. They'd been lucky with the first two locations; the bases had been situated away from settlements, and bystanders were few and far between.

The base in the Crim was situated right smack in the middle of the previously contested area, located about halfway between Sevastopol' and Donetsk, near the city of Mariupol'[4].

Their biggest problem, really, wasn't the HYDRA base, this time. Nor Barnes, should he choose to show up. It was that the Russians might try to annex the area a second time, on the heels of their mission. This part of Crimea was mostly russian-speaking, and had voted to become part of the Russian Federation last February. Immediately after the vote, Russian troops had streamed into the region, some with insignia and some without, to start staking their claim to the naval bases along the coast. And there was a better than even chance that it could happen again, if the Russian leadership thought they could get away with it, and there were even better odds that _that_ would spark active fighting over the disputed area.

All of which was moot in the short term. As long as there was no spark to start the fire, things would eventually calm down. But, Tony had to admit, it wasn't likely that things would stay the way they were, now. There was always some hot-headed moron spoiling for a fight and not caring about the possible consequences.

Not after the comment Zola had dropped in Alsace about being on the verge of a new global conflict. The whole scenario was drawing far too many parallels to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The event that had precipitated the first world war [5]. All it would take here would be one misplaced bullet. Or ill-timed photograph.

Throw in the fact that the Avengers' problem was that Steve was likely too focused on HYDRA and his friend to consider the political repercussions. And, Tony suppressed a wince, also wouldn't care, if it was brought up. This was exactly the kind of situation Fury had been referring to when he'd denied them SHIELD sanction for this series of missions. This could so easily go to shit at the drop of a hat.

But with Steve's very distinctive and brightly colored uniform, trying to deny their involvement, or SHIELD's -- or the United States', for that matter -- if they got caught on film or camera, would be next to impossible, and a political catastrophe. For them _and_ US foreign relations.

"Sir," JARVIS interrupted his contemplation of the situation, "the Captain is requesting your presence on the helipad. Takeoff is scheduled for fifteen minutes from now."

With a resigned expression, Tony stepped over to the armouring platform. "Right. Hook me up, J. It's time to rock and roll."

"If I may be so bold, sir," the AI put in, "perhaps it would be worth bringing the political concerns up with the Captain once the quinjet is in the air."

Tony made a face. "I can try."

An hour later, Tony was standing on the quinjet, facing the closed bay doors at the rear of the craft, and half hoping that staring at them with laser focus would cause them to open. The discussion of the political angle had gone about as well as expected. The others on the team had agreed with him, but Steve had dug in his heels. He _would_ retrieve his friend, come hell or high water.

All they could do was try to mitigate the disaster this promised to become. Steve had his stubborn face on and his rose-colored glasses to boot. He seemed to believe that somehow they'd be able to pull this off against all the odds.

Tony wasn't convinced.

But there was nothing he could say to convince Steve, so there was no choice but to see this through.

Most of the remaining miles passed uneventfully. Until they were ten minutes away from the base, nothing more happened. Then JARVIS' voice broke the silence as several confused Tweets written in Cyrillic appeared on the HUD alongside translations. They had been posted by people living in Mariupol', based on JARVIS' tracing of ISPs and IP addresses. "Sir, there are reports going up on social media of an explosion within a one mile radius of the location of the HYDRA base."

Что-то взорвалось... надеюсь, что все в порядке. _Something just exploded... hope everyone is okay._

Надеюсь, что это не газопровод рвануло. Хотелось бы всё же приготовить ужин позднее. _That boom better not have been the gas lines. I'd like to be able to cook dinner later._

Tony stopped reading and cued his external speakers. "Guys, we've got a problem. Something just exploded at the site of the HYDRA base. I'm getting social media reports from JARVIS. Open the bay doors. I'd better scout it out."

Without a word, Clint opened the doors.

Tony waited only long enough for them to open about a meter, then he was taking a running leap into the air before cuing his bootjets. As the quinjet slowed, Tony took off, trusting JARVIS and his high-precision GPS to guide him to the base.

As he'd suspected based on the Tweets, there was a column of black smoke beginning to rise from the base. A figure appeared out of the haze, and Tony thought he recognised the man who'd sniped at him in the desert not two days ago. This man wore a very similar all black ensemble, now revealed to be a leather jacket with far more buckles down the front than strictly necessary and heavy but tight pants. He also carried a Dragunov[6], and wore a glove on only his left hand. A strange covering resembling the lower half of a motorcycle face mask obscured his nose and mouth. A pair of darkly tinted goggles hid his eyes.

There was really only one person this could be.

The man stood motionless as Tony cautiously approached. A part of his brain that he usually switched off for battles commented that the guy looked damn good for a ninety year old assassin, despite the bizarre gear he wore.

Tony landed out of arm's reach, ready to defend himself if needed. "So. Why'd you shoot at me?"

"Felt like it."

Tony could hear the smirk. "I gotta say," he shot back, "if Steve hadn't called me back, you'd probably have gotten a repulsor up your ass."

"He's on that jet, isn't he."

Was this where Steve had picked up the habit of asking not-questions? "Yeah, and unless you give me a good reason to, I won't hold him back."

The assassin's body language shifted, then, turning oddly... regretful? "It's better if I don't get close to him." He reached into a pocket of his jacket, and Tony tensed, unsure what to do. "Here. Take this," he said, as he pulled his hand back out. Tony watched, incredulous, as Barnes produced a harddrive and offered it to him. "You'll need what's on it if you want to continue fighting HYDRA."

Tony only hesitated long enough to force himself to ignore his dislike of being handed things. Odds were, this was capital-I important. He looked down at it. The drive looked delicate in the armour's gauntlet. The nondescript black color of the device also somehow made it look totally innocuous, rather than malevolent. "Why are you helping us?"

"You listened." Barnes' flat tone didn't change, but the implications lacing the statement were clear to read.

 _Rather than shooting first_ , Tony filled in. He'd just managed to secure the drive in a safe compartment in his armour when the team comms went live. "Iron Man! Report!"

Tony had thought he didn't react, but something in his manner must have tipped off Barnes. The assassin went tense and did his best to disappear.

His best was pretty good, too. Tony'd been standing right next to him, but still almost didn't notice when the man turned and quickly made his way in the opposite direction.

"Cap, wait--" Tony tried to salvage the situation, seeing his teammate drop down from the still-hovering quinjet and start barreling towards them, but it was already too late. Cap pretty obviously was still reacting to Barnes as though he were the same person he'd been in DC. And Tony couldn't quite pin down why, but knew that was the wrong approach even as Cap tried to physically hold down Barnes long enough to talk to him. Captain America and the Winter Soldier met in a clash of bright colors and a flurry of blows. The sight was bordering on awe inspiring. Barnes was going toe-to-toe with Cap and almost outmatched him.

It was probably weird and creepy, but Tony found that level of dangerous competence wildly attractive.

Another explosion coming from the base behind Cap distracted him just enough at an inopportune moment, and the dodge he'd been halfway through turned into a tumble as Barnes' fist caught him in the ribs and sent him flying back.

Cap landed in a heap against a nearby tree and stayed there for a second, dazed.

It didn't take long for him to get back on his feet, but by then Barnes was already gone. Tony bit back an annoyed sound. He'd had it under control, for fuck's sake. But it clearly was asking too much for Cap to just stand back and let him handle it.

"Bucky!" Cap was going to try to chase him.

Of course, that was the moment that JARVIS alerted Tony to the approach of a van that more than likely contained a news crew.

"No, Cap," Tony put an arm out to block his path. "Let him go. We need to get the hell out of here, ourselves. Before the news vans arrive."

Cap tried to push past, but Tony stopped him by stepping in front of him. "I'm serious. The longer we stay here, the worse it gets. Barnes can take care of himself, and the base looks pretty thoroughly demolished. We won't find anything new here. We need to get out of dodge; the first news crews are on their way."

Cap gave in very reluctantly and glared at him. "If you're wrong about this, Iron Man--"

"Shut up and come here," Tony interrupted, offering his arm in the way they'd developed. Cap growled something under his breath that Tony ignored, but stepped into the hold. Tony gave him a moment to get settled, then took off. "Hawkeye, you got a set of coordinates for me?"

"No need. I'm still in the air and the doors are still open. Just come on in."

The scowl on Cap's face only deepened the longer they were in the air, and seemed to take on a hint of a pained line. Tony made a neat arc and threaded the needle, slipping into the cargo area of the quinjet as Hawkeye held it steady in the air.

Setting Cap on his feet as Hawkeye took off for home, Tony gave their team leader a long once-over. His posture hinted at injuries; his shoulders were slightly hunched and his left hand only loosely curled where Tony would have expected it to be tightly fisted in irritation.

"Hey Bruce," Tony called the other scientist over. "I think you'd better check over Captain Stubborn, here."

"I'm fine, Tony," Cap snapped at him.

"Isn't that usually my line," Tony shot back. "You force me into getting checked over. It's my turn to return the favor, Cap. Sit your ass down and let Bruce look at you."

Twenty minutes later, as Cap sulked at them all, patched up and bandaged where necessary, Bruce tallied up the damage. "You've got several cracked ribs, two broken fingers, and a concussion. I know you'll heal them faster than normal people, but you've still got to take care of them like we do."

Tony debated mentioning the drive he'd gotten from Barnes, but decided to hold back for the moment. Until he got it home and determined what was on it, he would keep it to himself. They didn't need another disappointment like they'd had with the information they'd tried to salvage from the last base.

There was a much better chance that the drive would be worth pursuing, but there were also good odds that it contained a variety of viruses or bugs designed to feed information back to Barnes or HYDRA.

For the moment, it was better not to get Cap's hopes up. Not after that last disappointment. Better to wait until he got forced into a debrief. He would have to let Cap lecture him about withholding information, but there were good odds that that way they'd have something concrete to work with afterward. Or not, if the drive proved to be nothing more than one more attempt to compromise JARVIS.

The flight back across the Atlantic started out quiet and more than a little bit tense. Steve had scraped his cowl back with his good hand and settled himself in a seat with abrupt angry motions.

No one commented. The others carefully ignored him, busying themselves with the business of flying, co-piloting, or meditation, respectively. They didn't want to send his mood even lower. While it was unlikely that Steve would lash out at them, no one wanted a fight, physical or verbal.

Tony, with nothing better to do, watched Steve from behind his faceplate and considered the day's events. Really, thinking about the situation Tony wouldn't have blamed Steve if he had lashed out. If that had been Rhodey out there, Tony knew, he probably would be even less restrained than Steve was being right now.

Eventually, though, the atmosphere slowly eased as Steve relaxed, to everyone's relief.

When they reached New York City limits, Tony started giving JARVIS instructions, off-comms. "J, we need to analyse this drive, yesterday. I want an isolated sandbox virtual machine to plug it into. Antivirus, firewalls, the works. No outside connections, and you don't touch anything until you've scanned it twice. You get me?"

"Of course, sir. Partitioning and preparing now," came the smooth reply. Tony was pretty sure the AI had already anticipated the request.

The moment the quinjet had settled on the helipad and the bay doors opened, Tony was in motion with a short comment on the comms. "I'll be in the workshop."

He took off using a quick sharp blast from his bootjets to launch himself off the helipad and towards Iron Man's private entrance, which opened as he approached on JARVIS' command. Under thirty seconds later, he was in his workshop, and the drive was sitting on his worktable as the armouring platform pulled the suit off him in modular pieces, leaving him in the wetsuit-like underlayer.

"Black out the windows and lock the door, JARVIS. I don't want to be disturbed."

"Very well, sir, but I feel I should point out that the good Captain is unlikely to take that with grace."

"I don't care. This is important. You got that virtual machine up and running?"

"I have allocated one terabyte," JARVIS' response was immediate, "under your proprietary OS, no outside connectivity, as requested."

"Right." Tony rubbed his palms together. "Let's get this party started. Connecting the drive now. Scan, then load 'er up."

"Scanning." JARVIS paused, then started listing the drive's specs. "This is a commercially available model, sir. Western Digital, three terabyte capacity, USB 3.5 compatible. Antivirus and heuristics scan in progress. No anomalies detected in the first twenty gigabytes."

Tony stepped back, one hand pensively rubbing at his goatee. "Hmm. Scan the rest and give me the clean data you've scanned so far."

He spent the next five hours reading, engrossed, horrified, and disgusted by turns. Barnes had somehow acquired a copy of precisely what they'd been searching for and handed it to them with a metaphorical bow on top: the records of the scientists that had worked to create the Winter Soldier.

It felt like the grossest invasion of privacy, but, Tony was sure, Barnes would never have handed him this drive and expected him _not_ to read what was on it. He'd said as much. The big question was why Barnes thought they would need information on the Winter Soldier's... genesis was probably the best word... to pursue their fight against HYDRA.

Deciding he'd had enough for the moment, Tony straightened and gestured to get JARVIS' attention. "Copy this to one of my disposable drives. We need at least one backup of this information. It's going in my private safe. I need to tell Steve about this."

"I would suggest a few hours' sleep, sir. It is currently 3:22am, the other Avengers are all asleep, and you are tired."

"Ugh," Tony groaned, "why do you always have to be so logical and rational about shit?"

"I cannot be otherwise, sir."

"Fine. You win. Scan the rest of the files on that drive and prep me a summary, would you?" Letting himself fall backward onto the sofa tucked away in a corner of his workshop, Tony threw one arm over his face to shade his eyes and tried to will the tension out of his muscles. "Lights out, J."

"Good night, sir."

The following morning a pounding on the workshop door that shook the adjacent glass panels of the viewing wall in their frames startled Tony awake. His jerky movements spilled him over the edge of the sofa and onto the floor with a pained grunt. "JARVIS, who the fuck is trying to break my door down at..." he glanced at the clock his AI helpfully displayed for him, "at fucking 6:06 in the goddamn morning?"

In response, the darkened panels in the door reverted to their usual transparent state, revealing a very pissed-looking Steve. "The captain appears to be at the end of his patience with your dodging medical."

"Oh, for fuck's sake. Fine. Let him in." Tony pushed himself up off the floor and pointedly dusted off his pants as Steve entered the room.

"I don't know why you insist on--" Steve began.

Tony cut him off. "I was totally fine. No injuries. Until you decided to wake me up and get me to fling myself off the sofa in the process." He rubbed at his elbow, "now I'll probably have some bruises."

"What the hell was so important that you had to lock us out?"

Well, here went nothing. Tony took a deep breath and sat on the sofa, one ankle tucked under his other knee and facing the other end of the sofa. "Sit," he pointed to the seat at the far end. "This isn't gonna be easy for either of us to talk about."

Steve gave him a startled look, then obeyed. "You've figured out the chair?"

"In a manner of speaking," Tony nodded. "And I've got some more information besides. So. Confession time. At that base in the Crim, I had a little chat with your friend Barnes."

"You what?!" Steve looked like he wanted to punch something. "Why didn't you tell one of us? Try to bring him in?"

Tony stopped him with a sharp look. "Firstly, I wouldn't stand a chance against him in a one-on-one fight. And I'll explain why in a minute. Secondly, I do not want to deal with a hostile assassin that we don't necessarily know we can restrain properly, even with the team to back me up, while in a plane over the Atlantic. That would end very badly for us. Thirdly, he hinted that our taking out the bases was helpful. Lastly, if you'd gone haring off after him and gotten us into the news, we would have a bitch of a time getting _back_ over there to find him, and the political fallout would have been insane. Imagine the headlines. 'American Superhero Strike Team Targets Ukrainian Military Base' would be the tip of the iceberg. We'd be in just about the deepest shit you could imagine, the world's governments would all be pissed at each other, and our best chance to get back your friend would go up in smoke as they all tried to both come out on top of the political heap and simultaneously crucify us as a team. Not to mention the damage to SHIELD as an organisation and the US on the international stage. Our little mission in the Crim was playing with fire in the worst way, and you were too blinded by your drive to get your friend back to see it."

Steve had the grace to look abashed, though repentant was nowhere to be seen. "You were saying," he prompted, his voice a lot less harsh.

Tony cleared his throat as he marshalled his thoughts, pulling himself back on track and away from the argument he'd just shut down. "He said -- how'd he phrase it -- 'It's better if I don't get close to him', when he figured out you were on the quinjet. As much as stated that he wasn't sure he could be around you without things going wrong. Why, I don't know. What I do know is that he appreciated not being shot at on sight when I approached him. Probably gets a fair amount of that, these days. He handed me a harddrive, and what's on it..." Tony had to pause and force his voice level again when it went hoarse under the weight of the knowledge he was about to share. "Essentially, they've managed to reverse engineer a version of the serum. Not the same one you've got; this one's less effective. But it works. It saved him from dying when he lost his arm and kept him alive when they grafted on the prosthetic. Let me tell you, reading about that was…" Tony let the sentence trail off into silence before he went on. "Then once Barnes was recovered a little, they took advantage of their bastard version of the serum to make sure Barnes would survive the memory alteration bullshit."

Steve looked shocked. "If they have a serum that works, why don't they use it on anyone else?"

"Not unlike the original serum that dad and Erskine used on you, it kills over 98% of its subjects and drives the majority of the rest into schizophrenia or causes their brain chemistry to go totally berserk and makes them very violent. Even fanatics like HYDRA weren't exactly lining up to take it. They did trials, about a hundred, and eventually gave it up when the expense in cash and manpower got too high to justify. The higher ups got impatient with the consistent failures after a while. Barnes is the only successful trial, to date," Tony answered. "As it stands, they've managed to get it more or less stable in him, though. Which is good. He just has to be careful that he eats enough, like you. Statistically speaking, you both got incredibly fucking lucky, where the scientific aspects are concerned, but that's a story for another day. I'm not nearly drunk enough to tell it right now."

Steve ran a hand through his hair. "That's... not what I was hoping to hear, but it's better than expected. And don't. If it's that difficult to talk about, just give me a copy of the files and let me read it for myself."

Tony snorted. That was unlikely to end well. Shaking his head to clear it, he went on. "There's more. A lot more. Initially, they just used the chair to wipe him every so often. Usually just prior to a mission, so that they could implant whatever personality and details they needed to. But the serum kept restoring his memories. And it did so with increasing frequency as time went on. Especially as they kept improving the serum." Noticing that his shoulders had slumped forward a bit, Tony straightened them. "As the Winter Soldier's original handlers aged, they came up with a _brilliant_ idea," his voice dripped sarcasm. "They put him into cryostasis. From the handlers' perspective that helped all parties. He got to heal -- however slowly -- while he was under, and HYDRA got to keep their super soldier in prime condition. And Barnes couldn't fight back." Tony gave Steve a crooked smile. His team leader's expression was hovering between horror, anger, and outrage.

After a beat, Tony went on. "The cryostasis had some side effects, but those should be mitigated by the serum. Mostly the issues are centered around the prosthetic arm and his memories. And this... is where it gets more complicated. More recently, they found a new method of memory control. Which meant they basically strapped him down, pumped him full of nanites, and then used the chair to program them anytime they needed to be updated. The nanites periodically edited and selectively deleted memories, to keep him leveled out rather than shocked every time they needed to make a change. It's surprisingly humane by HYDRA's standards, and a lot more effective than their previous method."

"So how do we get rid of the nanites," Steve wanted to know.

Tony sighed. "I'm not sure we can do it safely. The most effective way to do it would be with an EMP. Just nuke the fuckers. That's the HYDRA approved method, by the way. I got that out of the files Barnes gave me. There's a big problem with that approach, though. It would also make his arm unusable, and they seem to have found a way to tie the prosthetic into his nervous system directly. Trying to use the EMP would mean that the nanites would be deactivated, sure, but he'd be somewhere between defenseless and totally incapacitated afterwards. Possibly permanently, depending on how closely the arm is meshed in and how dependent he is on using it. I'd imagine that the answer to both is 'very'. Sooo... yeah. I wouldn't recommend it."

Steve growled, frustrated. "There's got to be _something_ we can do."

"For now, that means giving me enough time to analyse the data he handed us."

Steve looked like he wanted to disagree.

"He handed me that drive _for a reason_ , Steve," Tony insisted. "It has to be a good one. I just don't know what it is yet."

After a short silence that seemed to stretch, Steve nodded. He stood and offered Tony a hand up. "So find out what it is. After breakfast."

"You're cooking," Tony retorted, "otherwise it'll be toast and coffee."

That got a rueful shake of Steve's head in response. "One of these days, Tony, I'll convince you that cooking isn't as difficult as you make it out to be."

"Won't be today."

They were early, so none of the others were around yet. It felt odd, not to have to compete with Clint for his coffee. Odd, but kind of nice. As much as he liked the hectic chaos of having the Avengers around him, sometimes he needed quiet.

He got it, this morning, too. Steve didn't say much. Probably working through the information he'd just gotten more or less dumped on him. It wouldn't take him long, Tony knew. Steve processed things almost as quickly as he did.

Suddenly anxious to get back to the workshop, Tony ate quickly and made his way back out of the communal area. Just in time to hear someone else enter the room and greet Steve.

When he reached his destination, he sat at his workstation and leaned back in his chair with a tired huff of breath.

"Sir," JARVIS said, his tone approximating amused, "the Captain has asked me to remind you that you will not escape debriefing the team on what you've learned."

"Yeah, sure, later." Tony straightened up and flicked on his monitors. "What have you got for me on that drive?"

"Well," the AI returned as a list of coordinates appeared on the screen in front of him, "it contains what appears to be a list of HYDRA bases which includes those we extracted from the leaked SHIELD data, and several more."

"Hmm," Tony considered that for a moment. "Any other correlations with the leaked data?"

"Several, sir. But in all cases, the data provided on the drive is more extensive or more detailed."

Intrigued, Tony smirked. "Well, now. Let's see what else we can dig out of the data, then, shall we, J?"

Cross referencing with what he had before and datamining the shit out of both sets of data painted a pretty horrifying picture, though, once they managed to piece it all together.

When the Winter Soldier went AWOL after the mess in DC over Project Insight, HYDRA, in the person of Baron von Strucker, had decided to take advantage of Natasha's data leak to catch him again. The only reason it hadn't worked was because Barnes had gotten lucky at the first base, and only shown up after the team had started trashing it.

That was why the bases they'd hit had been so eerily desolate and abandoned. Strucker had had them emptied of pretty much everything, as a form of insurance, so that the Winter Soldier couldn't cause much collateral damage. Pretty much everything but the copy of Zola, who was supposed to do for Barnes what he'd tried to do to Tony and Clint. Stall him until HYDRA could either recapture him or kill him. When the Avengers had found Zola first, HYDRA had defaulted to kill. After all, Tony had been on their list of Dangerous People for years. And Clint was on their list as well, as a member of the Avengers. Why not take a pot shot at them?

That was also why the equipment had been so wildly mismatched in the first base; the more modern equipment had clearly been installed relatively recently to house the copy that the team had found there. The original had been moved long ago and the outdated equipment replaced. It wasn't clear where the original had been moved _to_ , though. That was one of the biggest unanswered questions in this whole debacle.

When Steve showed up hours later to pry him out of his workshop for dinner, Tony was almost relieved. Getting away from the horrifying truth of what HYDRA had done to Steve's best friend... well, he needed to do just that for a while. To take some time and not think about it.

Conversation over food was light and sparse. In anticipation of the debrief that everyone knew was coming, no doubt.

In the end, Steve handled most of the debrief for him, and Tony was glad of it. He went over what Tony had told him that morning, and fielded most of the questions about it, before turning the chair over to Tony. Almost reluctantly, he added what he'd deduced after breakfast.

Steve's expression got grimmer the longer Tony talked. Natasha just looked intent. Clint had propped his chin on one fist and his elbow on his knee as Tony talked, bored to all appearances, but Tony knew he was listening closely. Bruce just looked alarmed.

When Tony wound down, Bruce was the first to speak. "How do we know this data is for real, and not a plant?"

"We don't. But JARVIS found no viruses or bugs on the drive, and you know how good his heuristics are. Can you imagine a set of planted data without at least one? I'm sure HYDRA would jump at the chance to get into my systems."

While Bruce chewed on that, Natasha took the floor. "So you're saying that Barnes can't regain his memories without a way to deactivate the nanites."

Tony nodded. "Based on the data on the drive, yes."

Natasha gave him a considering look. "If we could convince him to come here, could you deactivate them?"

"I'm not sure," Tony admitted, going back over what he'd learned and considering the request. "It would take some time for me to find a way to do it that wouldn't hurt him. The most sure-fire way would be to hit them with an EMP. But I can't do that and not also damage the arm. Which is wired into his nervous system, based on the information he gave us. Think he'd agree, if I could pitch him a workable idea?"

Clint huffed, amused. "If he's desperate enough to find a way to fix it, probably."

Steve finally joined the debate. "He's been going after these HYDRA bases for revenge. I think he knows they won't take the risk of actually letting him get his hands on anything that would actually be useful to him."

"All the more reason to think the data he gave Tony is a fake, then," Clint pointed out. "If the nanites keep him brainwashed, then he's still a HYDRA asset, even if he's AWOL."

"I'm not so sure," Tony countered, and Clint shifted to stare down at the coffee table, his attention turned inward. Tony eyed him for a moment, then continued. "Steve and Natasha have told us what he was like in DC. The man I talked to is not the same person they described, based on our short meeting in the Crim. He didn't try to kill me, and I'm one of HYDRA's top priority targets. No arguing that."

Natasha nodded. "Astute, Stark. He may not be totally under their control any longer, but he's not back to being himself, either. "

"Well," Tony replied, "I'd better get back to the 'shop, then."

Clint looked up from his contemplation of the coffee table. "What for?"

Tony rolled his eyes. "We're taking out the next base in about 24 hours. My money's on Barnes showing up again. So. If I'm going to have a halfway workable idea to pitch to him, I'll need to start thinking now."

No one stopped him as he left. Before the elevator doors closed behind him, Tony could hear the others discussing strategy. Good. Either Steve or JARVIS would fill him in, and he could focus on the task ahead of him. He'd need to have one solid plan and one backup.

Five hours later, JARVIS was alerting him that it was midnight, and Tony had one and a half plans. He was also definitely done thinking for the night.

His feet came close to dragging as he trudged out of the workshop and into the elevator. "Penthouse, JARVIS," he requested, trying not to slur the words.

In response, the elevator started into motion, moving noticeably faster than normal. It brought a tired smile to Tony's face.

"Thanks, buddy," Tony stifled a yawn. It was a good thing his bed wasn't far from the door to his private apartment. That was by design. Precisely because of nights like tonight.

Not bothering to do more than strip down to his boxers, Tony let himself fall face first onto his bed. He knew nothing more until morning, deep dreamless sleep dragging him under like a lead weight. For once.

Waking later than he was accustomed, Tony blinked and pushed himself onto his back. Trying to rub the grit out of his eyes, he stretched lazily.

"Good morning, sir," JARVIS greeted him. "The time is 9:45am, and weather conditions are cloudy with a chance of rain. The Captain has asked me to alert him when you are ready to take breakfast."

Throwing one arm over his eyes, Tony groaned. "What's he want?"

"Last minute preparations for the attack on the last base on the initial list."

Tony could almost hear Steve say it rather than his AI. "Right. When we leaving?"

"In just under two hours, sir."

Tony debated just showing up to breakfast in the undersuit, but it wasn't the most comfortable thing to wear. It didn't breathe well, for all that it was a lot better than the simple neoprene it resembled. After a moment, he decided against it.

When he stumbled into the communal kitchen, Steve was waiting for him. "Good morning, Tony."

"Hi Steve." Rather than sit at the island, he made a beeline for the coffee maker, unsurprised when it turned up empty.

Steve wisely waited until he'd downed the first cup of coffee to start in on the part of the discussion that required Tony to be conscious. "Tony," he started, almost hesitantly, "do you have a plan for how to get Bucky back?"

Tony paused in rummaging around in the fridge and turned to Steve to answer. "More or less?"

Before he could elaborate, Steve shoved lightly at his shoulder and pointed to a plate set out on the island. It hadn't been there before. Tony eyed it suspiciously, but the eggs and bacon were singing a siren song. Sitting and starting to eat, Tony waved his fork at Steve. "I have a few plans, but all of them rely on the information on that drive, and we don't know how accurate that is. It's possible that Barnes gathered it on good faith, but got duped like we did in Tunisia with those files." Tony shrugged. "Until we can get him here and figure out what the situation is, exactly, I can't make specific plans."

Steve mulled that over. "But if the information is accurate, you can help him."

"I think so."

"Good. Eat up. We leave in forty-five minutes."

As if Tony didn't know. "Sure, sure."

With a last look at him and a nod, Steve strode out of the kitchen, a determined set to his jaw.

The flight across the Atlantic was starting to feel like routine. They were about halfway through their trip when it hit Tony that they hadn't heard from Fury in almost a week. And that was worrying.

It meant that they were either officially AWOL, as far as SHIELD was concerned, or that Fury was carefully keeping the politicians off their backs, and Tony didn't like either option.

When he cued the team comms to ask about it, Clint had answered in a bored tone. "Yeah, Natasha's been dealing with him so you don't have to. The Director prefers not to have you around, Stark. Drives his blood pressure up, apparently."

Clint didn't elaborate, and no one else felt the need to comment, for once.

It was almost eerie; the team was usually a lot less mission focused, willing to partake of some banter and inappropriate jokes. Especially during their downtime.

The next two hours passed slowly, and Tony tried not to let it bother him.

A half hour out from their destination, Tony asked JARVIS to scan social media again, but turned up nothing. This base was out in the middle of nowhere, deep in what used to be Soviet Russia, near the Ural mountains.

Nevertheless, as had been the case in the Crim, the Avengers arrived to find the base in ruins and Barnes waiting for them. As he had in the Crim, Tony had taken off to scout out the area as the quinjet followed him in. He'd found a column of black smoke rising out of the dense forest at the foot of the mountain range at the base's approximate coordinates. Wondering if this would be a repeat of their last encounter, he dove sharply for the ground as he approached.

Sure enough, as he cleared the treetops and the base doors came into sight, so did Barnes, his metal arm bare, this time, and glinting dangerously in the dim light. He'd also foregone the mask, though his goggles were still in place. It looked damn sexy. Maybe if he could get the nanites dealt with, Barnes would let him look at the arm.

Slowing his forward momentum, Tony pulled up to hover in the air in front of Barnes for a second before he cut power to his thrusters. Landing and taking the impact in his knees, Tony watched the assassin. "So," he quipped as he straightened, "we meet again."

"Looks that way," Barnes returned, his tone unreadable.

"Why'd you hang around and wait for us to show up? Looks like you had this dealt with just fine, yourself."

The comment got an amused smirk. "If I show myself now, your captain might not come after me."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Uuuuh, try again," he disagreed. "You've got that backwards. He's more stubborn than the elusive solution to the Theory of Everything[7]."

"Then why'd he send you instead?" Barnes challenged.

"Because I can get rid of those nanites," Tony replied, gambling that Barnes knew exactly what was on the drive.

It was a shot in the dark, but it hit its mark. Barnes stiffened, shoulders going tense. "No, you can't. The only way is with an EMP."

Tony snorted. "Bullshit. I'll prove it. Come to New York. JARVIS will let you into the Tower via the loading docks."

"And just how do you plan to do that?"

Tony grinned. Got him; hook, line, and sinker. "Simple," he declared, as though he hadn't spent much of the night coming up with and refining the idea. "You familiar with the way dialysis[8] works?"

Barnes stared at him for a long time, silent and calculating. "Alright. Put your money where your mouth is, Stark. You have a week to prepare, and you'd better be ready."

The whine of the quinjet's engines interrupted the discussion, then, and without another word, Barnes faded away into the dark trees. Tony couldn't quite banish the grin, though. That had gone better than any of them had had a right to expect.

He had a dialysis machine to buy and modify. And perhaps a chair to destroy.

Clint set the quinjet down in a clearing about ten meters off to Tony's left, and cued the comm. "So?"

Tony walked the short distance over to the craft and stepped aboard when Clint obligingly opened the bay doors. "As we thought, he was here." Tony flipped up his faceplate and gave them all a look. "Off the record, now," he added, "he's coming to the Tower in a week. I need you five to stay out of the way -- especially you, Cap -- until it's done. He's not feeling very sure of any of you. Probably not very sure of me either."

Steve looked a little hurt, but Natasha had a thoughtful expression. "He doesn't know who he can trust. His instincts and buried memories say yes, but his training says no."

Clint winced, half sympathetic and half annoyed. "Explains his reaction to Cap. But not why he seems to like Stark."

Ignoring that, Tony jumped back in. "Bruce, I'll need your input for what I'm planning, but the actual mechanics of it should be straightforward. We'll talk details once we're back in the Tower."

Bruce nodded, surprised but gratified. "I'll do what I can to help, Tony."

"What are you planning," Steve finally broke his silence.

"Nothing too risky. I'll explain the details to you later." Tony waved the question off. "Nanites have to be in his bloodstream to have access to everything they need, so we're going to filter them out." Settling back against the bench seat at the back of the jet, he quipped, "still, I think I'm glad that the transatlantic flights can end, now. There were two more bases on the list Barnes gave us, and both are in the Americas. I get the impression he's planning to use the week he requested to take them out too." One was deep in the Texas desert, and the other near the Arctic Circle in the Yukon.

Steve made a low frustrated noise. "That would be like him. But something tells me one or both of those two will be different."

Clint shrugged. "Guess we'll see."

As the quinjet rose back into the air and arrowed off, the team was quiet, mulling over the situation and its implications. Tony took the opportunity to get out of the armour and stretch out as he planned the next steps. He kept his link with JARVIS in; it was integrated into the undersuit, and didn't require him to wear the helmet.

Based on the information the drive had contained, the nanites in Barnes' system were free to circulate in his blood until there was a need for upkeep of whatever story they were currently brainwashing Barnes into believing, and then their programming prompted them to gather in the appropriate locations to alter Barnes' memories. And when the nanites needed updating or maintenance, that was what the chair was for. It collected the nanites using an electromagnetic field and then reprogrammed them using focused wireless technology. Probably also took advantage of that modified TENS system he and JARVIS had found in the arm of the chair.

If filtering out the nanites proved impossible, in theory he could use the chair to send them a shutdown command. But that was a last resort plan for a number of reasons. Odds were good that Barnes would refuse it, for one, and for another Tony had yet to figure out the nanites' programming or the chair's. And that wasn't even getting started properly on the list of things that could go wrong.

Tony made a face. "J," he prompted, "it's time. Have U and Butterfingers move that chair we recovered from HYDRA somewhere out of sight. Use one of the storage bays with a door adjoining the workshop. And put in the orders we discussed last night. I'll want it delivered as soon as possible."

"Am I to assume that means your plan has been approved, sir?"

"It has. We have a week to prepare."

On their arrival back in New York, Fury called them in for another debrief. It went about as well as the last one had. The director had admitted that they'd done well not to get caught on film in the Crim. Some sources had claimed they'd been present, but without photographic proof, no major incidents had been triggered. Political tensions were still running high in the region, but since the base's demolition had apparently been rigged to look like a gas leak and explosion, no one was overly paranoid about it all. A few of the smaller terror groups had come forward to argue over the credit for the deed, but the local fire departments had ruled it an accident.

It was grudging praise, but good enough for Tony.

Natasha and Clint had done most of the talking. Bruce was always quiet at debriefs, and Steve spent a lot of his time watching Fury, rather than explaining anything. Tony occasionally put in his two cents, doing what he could to avoid talking about his plan to deal with Barnes' little issue a week from now. To his surprise, no one else brought it up either.

By the time Fury had given them all a long look that said he knew they were hiding something but he would let it ride for now, all of them had been tired enough to just accept the mild censure. Well, all of them except for Steve, who bristled a little under the scrutiny. With a final nod, the Director had dismissed them to quarters and swept out of the room, leaving them to their own devices.

"So, that went better than expected," Clint quipped, leaning back in his chair and stretching before he stood, leading the way to the quinjet.

Steve gave him a skeptical look as they walked through SHIELD. "How do you figure that?"

"We have implicit permission to continue on as we are," Natasha clarified, and Clint nodded. He picked the thread of the conversation back up. "Fury neither asked about it nor outright told us not to deal with Barnes' problem our way. I think he recognises that we'll have better luck with that than SHIELD would as an organisation."

Entering the quinjet and checking on his armour, Tony snorted, cynicism saturating his next words. "We'll see. I'm pretty sure he'll find a way to pull it out of our jurisdiction later. Let us deal with getting him out of HYDRA's clutches and patched up, and then snatch up our freshly rehabilitated assassin."

"He can try," Steve growled, his tone all but inviting Fury to try and fail.

Clint snorted. "Steve, man, chill. It'll be better for your friend in the long run if he has someone official to vouch for him. Tony would, I'm sure, but everybody'll take one look at the situation and call him biased in Barnes' favor. Which might be true, I don't know. If you try it, the effect would be even worse. And the rest of us don't have enough sociopolitical clout to try. But if he has SHIELD backing him up, that'll go a long way towards establishing his credibility. Even after what you and Nick triggered in DC. SHIELD is still a government agency on par with the FBI and CIA, and now HYDRA has been given the boot. There will still be a lot of controversy and shouting on the news media, but once SHIELD has put out the word that he's on our side, we can drum up support in other quarters. Including from our team. And I suspect Tony or Natasha can convince SI's CEO to lend her own political weight to the equation. Ms. Potts has a lot of admirers."

"There are still two more bases on the list," Natasha reminded them. "We need to deal with those and with setting up for Tony's plan to deal with the nanites, before we try to tackle the issue of Barnes' legitimacy. Borrowing trouble at this point will only distract us."

Bruce chimed in. "So which base is next? Texas?"

Tony shrugged. "Impossible for me to guess which one he'll hit next. Both are about equally valuable, as HYDRA assets go. You have a guess, Widow?"

"No," she scowled. "I never knew him that well, and you're right to guess that Steve's answer to the question may also not be accurate."

"So, split up," Clint suggested, as he set the quinjet down on the Tower's helipad. That was rapidly becoming the norm, and it nagged at Tony. After this business with Barnes was settled, he'd have to deal with the issue of storing the quinjet properly.

"You think two of us at each base would be enough to handle things if HYDRA finally puts up a fight or sets a trap?" Bruce shook his head. "I don't think so. Remember that self-destruct at the base in Alsace? If that had hit its mark, we would have instantly been down two members. Probably permanently. If we split up now..."

Steve gestured sharply with his hand, ending the discussion abruptly, when Bruce let his sentence trail off into pointed silence. "We deal with the two remaining bases as efficiently as possible. We're going to Texas first thing tomorrow morning. We leave New York at 0500 hours, and hit the HYDRA base at or before dawn. If it goes off without any problems, we'll take out the second base after a break for lunch. All of you, eat and get some rest."

Tony caught Steve's eye with a smirk. "What are we ordering tonight, O Captain, my Captain?"

Considering the question for a moment, Steve smirked back as they entered the common area. "Italian. "

"Pizza or pasta?" Tony challenged with a raised eyebrow.

JARVIS interrupted the banter, his tone as smooth as ever, "I would suggest both, sir."

"Right," Tony nodded sagely, and Clint snorted, hiding a snigger as best he could. Tony blithely went on, "Definitely both. The good Captain does need to keep on top of his caloric intake. JARVIS, order us some pizza and pasta. Pour on the carbs. Some normal sized portions for the rest of us."

"Har har," Steve rolled his eyes and shoved at Tony's shoulder good naturedly. "Jackass."

The remainder of the evening was occupied by dinner and some more strategic discussion, but they came to no real consensus. When they'd exhausted the topic, Steve called a halt. For his part, Tony was inclined to agree with Bruce. Despite his protests, Clint was, too. Natasha was skeptical. She was fairly sure both of the remaining bases would be traps, and had said as much.

Their main problem was that they had no real indication of which base Barnes would hit first, and given the high probability that HYDRA was raising the stakes on them, they had to just hope they chose correctly.

Tony slept uneasily, and was awake early. Rather than try to force himself back to sleep, Tony shuffled into the shower. It helped a little. Woke him up a little more. When he showed up in the communal kitchen, Clint and Natasha were already there. Bruce and Steve walked in together a few minutes later, as Tony sipped at a coffee he barely tasted.

Steve eyed him, and Tony met the glance levelly. "You haven't eaten yet, have you," Steve prompted him.

Tony said nothing, but everyone in the room knew better than to think that wasn't tacit acknowledgment of the point.

Steve shook his head in mock disappointment. "I leave you to your own devices once, and you revert to your usual diet of coffee and toast."

"Don't knock the toast," Tony shot back. "It's better than nothing."

"Not by much," Steve's voice held disapproval verging on disgust at the thought. "If I have to eat properly, the rest of you do too. It's only fair. Team solidarity."

With an amused chuckle Tony gave in, throwing his hands up in a gesture that could have been surrender or self-defense, but wasn't quite either. "You're like the den mother, you know."

"We have a long-haul fight planned today. Eat. You might not get a chance to stop for donuts, later."

"Pretty sure I could make time to stop by Randy's," Tony disagreed.

Clint snorted. "I heard about that one. Coulson said Fury had to haul you down out of the donut by your ear. Natasha confirmed it."

"Lies and slander!"

Bruce shook his head sadly. Natasha visibly looked up at the ceiling, hoping for someone, anyone, to lend her the patience to put up with such nonsense. Steve put an end to the discussion by pointedly shoving full plates and silverware at both Clint and Tony.

They were all on edge, despite the food and the relative calm of the moment.

An hour, two equipment checks, one spare first aid kit, and two verbal skirmishes later, they were in the air.

They arrived at the base in Texas one and a half hours later. Located out in the middle of the desert, east southeast of El Paso[9], miles away from anything, this base strongly resembled that in Tunisia. The sand dunes were longer and flatter here, though, and the smudge of the traffic on the Interstate to the south was just barely visible from altitude.

Tony hovered high above the base briefly, but the lack of destruction was as clear a sign as could possibly be that they'd chosen wrong. His lips tightened. "Cap," he spoke into the team comms, "we're gonna have to work quickly here and move on. This base is still standing."

A string of swear words answered him, and Tony snickered to himself, even as he cut the power to his bootjets and let himself freefall toward the mostly hidden base entrance. Steve had one hell of a temper, but usually he restrained the impulse to curse and swear, so it always seemed a bit incongruous when he did.

The resistance at this base was a lot more than any of the others had offered, but the Avengers fought as though inspired. They were finished quickly, and Cap decided they could give the base a brief once-over for any potentially valuable information.

What they found instead was another copy of Zola.

The machines were already active and the system running when Tony and Cap stepped into the room. Both tensed when the activity lights on the monitors and cameras clued them in.

"Ah, Captain, Iron Man," the grating voice greeted somehow sounding more arrogant and superior than it had in Alsace. "I see you have survived thus far. Very impressive."

"Give it up, Zola," Cap couldn't resist answering the posturing in kind. "You won't win."

"Oh, but we have already won, Captain."

Tony stepped forward, and heard the soft whine of the camera refocusing to follow him. "What do you mean?"

"Your team shall not vanquish HYDRA. Better than you have tried and failed. HYDRA will rule eternal, and I shall remain eternally preserved to watch our glorious order prevail." An image of the flag associated with the Third Reich appeared on one monitor, flying proudly and rippling in a light wind. "Even now," Zola continued, "our errant asset is falling right into our carefully prepared trap, and all of your efforts to foil our plan are wasted."

"What?" Cap sounded outraged, and Tony couldn't tell whether it was because of the ridiculous Nazi pageantry or because his friend had potentially walked into a firefight without him.

Zola laughed, enjoying the scene. "Oh, Captain, you are far too naïve. You and your team may have caused us some minor damage here in Texas, but what you have done is too little, too late. As we speak, the last base on that carefully planted list you have acquired, deep in the northern reaches of Canada, is under attack from the Winter Soldier. He will fail, as you have, long before you can reach his side to aid him. He will be recaptured, reprogrammed, and reminded of his place in our order."

Tony raised a repulsor, anger overtaking him at those words. "Don't count us out just yet, asshole."

"There is nothing to debate, Iron Man," Zola sneered. "We have won. And you shall meet your death here."

Tony didn't bother to hang around and find out what that was supposed to mean. He threw an arm around Steve. "Come on, Cap, we're getting out of here."

Steve didn't argue. He remembered what had happened in Alsace and Tunisia. There was no reason for Zola not to try the same trick again, and this time they were even deeper below ground.

Despite their quick decision and action, the first explosion caught them just before they reached the base entrance, and carried them, tumbling, along on a wave of superheated air and a roar of sound. Tony only barely managed to avoid slamming them into what remained of the base doors. As it was, his left arm clipped the doorframe, tearing a ragged chunk out of the steel as a corner of his pauldron[10] caught and briefly held on its inner edge. The force the impact imparted left Tony's shoulder and upper arm aching as the armour suddenly pushed sharply against muscle and bone. When the doorframe gave and they were flung into open air beyond, Tony used a quick burst of power to the bootjets to send them into a spiraling series of loops designed to dump the rotational momentum.

It took a few seconds for Tony to take stock of his injuries and the minimal damage to the armour, even as he continued trying to regain control of their flight. There were now several sharp aches down his left arm scattered between shoulder and elbow that were going to bloom into spectacular bruises later and a long gouge down his bracer with ragged sharp edges. The armour had good cushioning and force transmission reduction components, but they couldn't save him from everything. There simply wasn't enough room in the suit to include large enough displacement elements for that.

A missile narrowly missed the wing of the quinjet as it rose farther into the air to avoid the blast from the first. It was shot down a moment later, exploding relatively harmlessly in midair. A second, no longer properly guided now that the base had already been mostly destroyed, missed them completely, impacting harmlessly on desert sands approximately a klick downrange. The shockwave from the last missile's impact and detonation traveled through the air and made Tony wobble again just as he managed to stabilise their flight. He rode out the turbulence without much trouble, and made a bid to get to the quinjet, which was coming in for a landing relatively far from the base, while it was still in the air.

There was a familiar column of black smoke rising from the remains of the base, accompanied by a crater a kilometer away about five meters in diameter, where the missile that had impacted in the desert had slagged some of the sand to glass.

An angry roar from ground level caught Tony's attention and he wanted to groan. Damn it all to hell. The blast had caught Banner off guard, apparently, and led to the Hulk's abrupt appearance in their midst. And now they were faced with the choice of finding a way to calm him down quickly, convince him to ride with them in the jet -- which would be a cramped uncomfortable affair, or leave him here and go haring off to find Barnes.

The time it took to travel from this base to the other was about an hour for Tony on his own in the suit if he went supersonic and pushed his tech, and two for the quinjet, at its top speed.

Cap muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath. "Put me down, Iron Man. We'll deal with Hulk. Get to Bucky. You can get there faster than the quinjet anyway. We'll meet you there as soon as we can."

Dropping down to the sand near the Hulk, but far enough away that Cap could gauge his approach, Tony set his friend down, only then noticing the tears in his uniform and the burns on the skin beneath.

As though he knew what Tony was thinking, Cap put a hand on the armour's shoulder plate. "I'll be fine. There'll be time to get the burns patched up on the flight north. Go."

"You'd better be fine. Don't leave me hanging."

When Tony showed up on the scene, a long hour and four minutes later, the fight for the base was still ongoing. Glad to discover that Zola had been bluffing hard, he dropped and made a slightly awkward but very satisfying three point landing on the uneven ground right in the middle of a group of very surprised HYDRA goons.

Even as they scattered and stumbled in an attempt to avoid him, three sharp cracks sounded from a position above Tony and to his right. Four goons fell, clutching various parts of their anatomy, and Tony felt a feral grin pull at his lips even as the bruises he'd acquired escaping the last base started to make themselves known, aching and pulling in odd ways as he moved.

The terrain here was far wilder than in Texas, being farther from civilisation and near the northernmost end of the Rocky Mountains[11]. The base itself was located about halfway between the two small towns of Elsa and Eagle Creek. Not that either really deserved the name 'town', in Tony's opinion. The hills and valleys surrounding the hidden base made finding a good sniping position difficult. Though clearly not impossible, Tony noted. And not one of the bullets had scored his armour.

Straightening up and charging his repulsors, Tony joined the fight with a feeling of near glee. It didn't take overly long for the two of them to cut a wide swath through the HYDRA goons, and Tony was amazed to realise that he worked as well with Barnes as he did with Cap. If not better. Somehow they fell automatically into the roles of support and heavy, managing to coordinate seamlessly even without the benefit of a set of comms.

Either, Tony decided as he repulsored a goon into a tree to slump down at its base, unconscious, he had gotten good enough at working with Cap to read Barnes, or it was the other way around.

The idea that Barnes could read him that well bothered him less than it probably should.

Another group of three hung back and shot at him with some kind of energy gun. Tony idly identified it as the same type as the one he'd confiscated in Alsace and never had a chance to properly analyse. Preliminary tests had said the armour could withstand its blasts, but what the consequences would be in an actual battle, he didn't know. Tony caught one goon in the face with a repulsor and watched as the other two fell with holes in their shoulders. Disabling shots, courtesy of Barnes. Painful, but nonlethal.

Tony wasn't sure whether the non-lethal takedowns were for his benefit and peace of mind or not. He decided that didn't matter.

A fresh wave of goons poured out of the base, too many for Tony to deal with all at once, and they surrounded him as well as Barnes. Rolling his eyes at the obvious -- and obviously flawed -- tactics, he cued his bootjets and shot into the air. Under five seconds later, he was inside the ring that was trying to close in on Barnes, and doing his best to cut a hole in their ranks. The HYDRA goons were implacable, though, and kept coming. Kept pressing on and pushing Tony back toward Barnes' position with potshots that got more difficult to dodge with each passing second.

It kept on that way for thirty seconds that stretched like taffy, and Tony caught three shots from more of those energy guns on various panels of his armour. They left behind scorches and deep dents, as well as several more matching deep bruises, but did not compromise the armour itself.

Tony grimaced. He would be icing his side and shoulder for days, after this.

Before the situation could come to a head, Barnes appeared beside him. Well, would have, had Tony been on the ground. Hastily he landed, covering the man's right side. "What, exactly, are you trying to do down here," Tony asked, his tone rendered flatter and more monotone by the armour's 'voice' than it had been when he's said it. He knew the query had started out more than a little irritated in tone.

"The situation was untenable," Barnes replied, picking off two more goons with well-placed shots. "I'm nearly out of bullets."

Tony paused to K.O. a goon trying to flank their position. "So we withdraw and wait for the others to show up. They can't be more than fifteen minutes out."

That, of course, was when everything about the skirmish started to go wrong at once.

Before he could reply, the gun in Barnes' left hand clicked empty, the slide racking back and locking in place after the last bullet in the magazine was spent. A split second later, not giving him enough time to replace the gun in its holster, a shot rang out from somewhere to their right, and Barnes staggered with a hiss of pain, blood blooming bright red over his right bicep.

It didn't just ooze either, Tony was alarmed to note. That was the gush of arterial blood, and if they didn't get it dealt with soon, it was an injury that could prove fatal.

Swearing up a blue streak, Tony decided to be daring. He put a hand on Barnes' uninjured shoulder, a little weirded out initially by the sound of metal on metal that met his ears as his gauntlet landed on the metal of Barnes' prosthetic, and pushed him down out of the way, mindful of the armour's strength.

Barnes' prosthetic hand wrapped tightly around the gauntlet on his shoulder, gripping hard enough that Tony swore he could feel it through his armour. Nothing further happened, and so Tony assumed that the reaction was out of surprise rather than fear or pain. "JARVIS, the knock out darts. We need to deal with this _now_ ," he ordered, watching the HUD light up with a spray of targeting reticles. There had been too many goons to try this earlier, and he was gambling that there weren't any more waves waiting in the base for their chance to pounce.

Without a word of reply, the AI did as requested, and the forested hillside around them went suddenly quiet. Tony had two darts left after all of the targets were down. There had been just enough in the ammo bays for the goons attacking them.

No one else showed up in the base's door, and Tony decided that there were more important things to be doing than waiting around for HYDRA to get their collective heads out of their asses long enough to press the attack.

Wrapping an arm around Barnes' waist and draping the man's metal arm around his neck, Tony lifted him back to his feet, ignoring the sounds of breath forced through clenched teeth. "Up you go," he told the sniper. "I'm getting us far enough away from the base that we won't be disturbed. Back to the team, if possible. You need a medic." He only waited long enough to get an acknowledging nod before he continued. "JARVIS. Tell Clint to get here, yesterday. I'm not qualified for this."

The rest of the team had arrived on the scene, more or less on schedule, not five minutes later, all of them poised to jump into the fight. Steve, naturally, was trying to take the lead, shouting questions into the comm as the quinjet approached that Tony ignored.

"Belt can double as a climbing harness," Barnes said as he took back his prosthetic arm, using it to put pressure on the arteries in his organic shoulder. A fine tremble was starting to run through him, and Tony identified the first symptoms of shock in Barnes' dilated eyes.

Tony nodded. Rather than let Clint land, Tony found a more secure grip on the assassin he had in his arms. "Don't look down," he quipped and cued the bootjets. "Clint, open the bay doors. We've got wounded to deal with and I'm coming in hot."

The AI helpfully labeled a glint just on the edge of sight as the team quinjet when Tony rose high enough into the air to clear the treetops, reassuring Tony without having to speak that the team was well within range to help.

Pouring on enough power to match their speed to the quinjet's and making sure he kept the Gs to a minimum for the sake of his passenger, Tony listened as the words caused a minor scramble, audible over the comm.

When the bay doors were halfway open, Tony judged it safe enough and made his final approach. When he got close enough, Steve all but hauled them into the jet and threw Banner at them in an attempt to get them patched up, pronto. Their leader had clearly feared the worst, and when he saw the blood running freely down Barnes' arm to drip to the floor of the jet, Steve lunged for the first aid supplies.

Tony, standing very still and supporting Barnes with one arm and shoulder, waited calmly as Bruce approached them more cautiously.

After a moment to gather himself, Barnes forced out, "Bullet's still in there. Hit bone. Two fragments. Bone isn't fractured."

Bruce nodded, taking the kit Steve was offering him. "Natasha, I need your steady hands. Tony, help me hold him still."

The unsaid in his request rang clear to everyone on their team. Steve visibly swallowed back what he wanted to say and stepped up to the front of the jet to take over for Natasha as copilot. He didn't see Barnes watch him leave, eyes very intent.

Once Steve was firmly settled in the copilot's seat, Barnes released his grip on his right shoulder and somewhat gingerly, almost hesitantly, reached for the fastenings of his odd half-jacket, releasing them and allowing Natasha to help him out of it before reapplying the pressure.

Setting the bloodied jacket aside, she turned, rummaged in the first aid kit, then approached, taking Steve's position of a moment ago and holding up a latex-free tourniquet.

Before she could speak, Barnes caught her eyes and nodded. "Do it."

He carefully watched her put on the nitrile gloves and then manipulate the tourniquet with expert speed.

Watching Barnes as she obeyed then stepped back, Tony suspected that under other circumstances, Barnes would do this part himself, without anaesthetic or tourniquet. The flow of blood had slowed to a trickle, and Bruce stepped in to clean the skin around the wound so that they could see what they were doing. It wasn't as bad as Tony had initially feared, but it would nonetheless be one more scar to join the lines and marks already visible on Barnes' skin. He rejected the local anaesthetic she held up next with a decisive shake of his head.

When the assassin spoke again, the words directed at Tony, this time, Tony blinked and refocused.

"Watch it with those gauntlets of yours."

Tony, surprised into a smirk, carefully settled his hands at Barnes' elbow and shoulder, then shot back, "Don't force me to use them. I'd prefer not to."

For a reason even he couldn't quite pin down, Tony gave JARVIS the silent command to open the faceplate.

Surprised blue eyes met his. "So," Barnes drawled, suitably distracted as Bruce directed Natasha through digging out the bullet fragments, "that's what you look like."

Tony raised an eloquent eyebrow at him. "Please," he snarked back, mock offended. "I've been all over the news media all my life. I'm sure you've seen more photos than you remember."

Barnes concealed a wince as Natasha pulled out the first fragment then went back in for the other. "Not the same thing."

Hearing the hoarseness of his voice, Tony made a note to dig out a water bottle for the man once they were through. Or maybe some juice. "I accept any and all forms of flattery," he kept up the banter. "It's nice to know I won't have to explain all the reasons why I'm more awesome in person."

A snort from the cockpit betrayed Clint's amusement. Steve was being surprisingly silent. If Tony had to guess, his hands were probably white knuckled and wrapped around the seat's armrests tightly enough to leave behind finger-shaped dents. Natasha and Bruce were ignoring him completely, and that was fine.

Barnes managed to scrape up a weak smile. "Yeah, you think you're all that." A hiss interrupted his words as the second fragment came out part way, then broke in half before Natasha could get it past the lip of the entry wound.

With a murmured half apology, she dropped the piece she'd managed to remove into Bruce's waiting hand, as she had the first, and carefully grasped the last fragment again with the tweezers.

"And I'm always right." Tony tried to distract him again as the last piece came out and Bruce started quickly cleaning out, then stitching up, the hole in Barnes' arm. "You'll see."

That got an outright laugh from Clint, who jeered at Tony's expense from the cockpit until Steve snapped at him to focus on keeping their flight smooth. Tony sneered back, imagining flipping Clint off, knowing he couldn't let go of Barnes' arm long enough to actually physically flip the asshole off.

When he looked back down at Barnes, the man was watching him, amused. "I think I have a pretty good idea already."

Bruce made Tony let go after he was finished putting in stitches, and used the opportunity to cover the wound then bandage it. As he worked, Natasha disposed of the gloves, tweezers, tourniquet, and bullet fragments.

Barnes' expression shifted back and forth between relief that he wasn't bleeding and distrust. Oddly, he didn't seem to include Tony in the general distrust. Well, okay, they could work with that.

Stepping around to stand in front of Barnes, Tony caught his eyes. "Hey, Barnes."

"Yeah?"

"Do you need the rest of that week you wanted, or do you want to come back to the Tower?"

Apparently offering him a choice was the correct move. Tony was glad no one tried to step in and take control of the discussion; Cap had to be biting his tongue hard. Barnes relaxed visibly. "Your Tower's not secure."

Tony snorted. "Maybe not against you," he conceded, "but how many others like you are out there?"

Barnes actually considered that. "Two. Maybe three. All currently occupied with jobs."

"So. Tower? Other ambiguous location somewhere?"

"Tower."

"Right. Hawkeye, back to the helipad. We'll avoid the street level entrances. The upper levels get more than enough media exposure anyway, as it is."

It was like a silent exhalation of relief from the cockpit. Tony grinned before he turned back to Barnes. "I'm not quite finished with my preparations, but I can be tomorrow evening. The team can come back out here and blow up the base properly in the morning. We cleared out the majority of the goons."

A tired nod answered him. "Good enough."

Two mostly silent hours later the quinjet was on the helipad, as promised, and the team clustered around Barnes as they entered the common area, shielding him from view as best they could.

Tony tried to give Barnes a suite and disappear into the workshop, but that was apparently not acceptable. Barnes simply followed him back out of the rooms again, implacably refusing to stay there. "Stark," he said reasonably when Tony wanted to know why, "I'm a stranger, in your home, at the mercy of your team and your AI. I'm safest with you."

That... that logic was faulty. But Tony knew he would not convince the man otherwise. Not until his memories had been restored and he knew Steve again. And Barnes needed to know someone in the Tower was in his corner until such time. Hesitating a moment longer, in the sure knowledge that Pepper and Rhodey were probably going to tear him a new one over this stunt the moment he saw either of them, he nodded, turning and walking towards the elevator at the end of the hallway. "Alright, come on. I'm going down to the workshop. Just... try not to break anything."

Dry humour audible in his voice, Barnes held up his left hand, the metal glinting dangerously in the lighting, and quipped, "I won't. Scout's honor."

"Hah! You were never a Boy Scout."

"How do you know?" Barnes' eyes held more than a hint of smugness.

"Well," Tony retorted as the elevator doors slid open, "unless you remember more of your own history than I do, right now, I'm pretty sure you don't have a leg to stand on."

He didn't get a verbal reply. No, Barnes flipped him off. Tony couldn't help it; he burst out laughing.

When they arrived at the workshop level, Tony took a lot of pleasure in the way that Barnes' eyes widened almost comically. Secure in the knowledge that all the truly confidential or secret work had been stowed away -- JARVIS had experience in accommodating visits from uncleared personnel -- Tony led the way through the glass door. He made a note to change his access code, though, just in case. He suspected that Barnes' memory was highly trained to retain such things. Not that JARVIS would just let him in without question, but that wasn't the point. "So," he gestured grandly, "welcome to my humble abode. My home not-so-away from home."

Barnes snorted, a subtle smirk tugging at his lips. "Cozy," he replied.

"JARVIS," Tony redirected the conversation, "handle the introductions of the bots, would you?"

"Of course, sir," the AI replied, making Barnes jump ever so slightly. Tony raised an eyebrow at him and got a scowl in exchange.

Before Barnes could say anything, a high-pitched beep cut through the air like a knife, and Tony winced. "Dum-E, no!"

The robot zoomed over, barely managing to stop in time to avoid running Barnes over, and started poking at him. U and Butterfingers followed more sedately. Tony sighed and stepped in between the robots and the seemingly paralysed target of their curiousity. Pushing at Dum-E's support strut, he forced the bot back a few inches, wincing as the bruises he'd acquired ached at the movement. "Dum-E, what have I told you about molesting guests!"

Making a disappointed sounding trill, the bot backed off reluctantly. Tony glared at him for another few seconds, but eventually decided the stand off was over. "Sorry about him, he's not overly smart."

Barnes looked dazed. "You have more AIs?"

"Yeah. Sometimes it's nice to have an extra hand to help you solder." Tony watched Dum-E closely as he poked at Barnes' prosthetic again. "But these three cause at least as much trouble as they solve."

Regaining his equilibrium, Barnes poked back, getting a squeal out of the bot and bringing the other two crowding closer. Tony sighed. "J, keep an eye on them. Don't let them harass my guest." He turned back to Barnes. "You gonna survive the robot inquisition, if I get started?"

"You'd rescue me," Barnes asserted, watching him with a surprisingly intent expression.

Not sure what to think about that flirtatious-sounding statement, Tony ignored it and worked on getting the trio of helper bots to leave Barnes alone. To Tony's pleased surprise, the bots calmed down quickly, after that. Butterfingers and U lost interest after a few minutes, leaving only Dum-E persistently trying to figure out Barnes' prosthetic arm. The idiot of a bot seemed almost enamoured with the thing.

Losing himself in the adjustments he needed to make to the dialysis machine, Tony set to work and tuned out the world, as he tended to do. Probably a risky proposition, but Barnes had said he wanted Tony's protection from the team and his AIs. Tony felt he ought to be safe enough.

He was just about finished installing the mounts for the electromagnet and solenoid coil when a hand fell on his shoulder and he about jumped out of his skin. The grip happened to land on one of the worst bruises. It was... fucking hell, why did it always have to be that shoulder?

Obie had gripped that shoulder comfortingly, so many times. Threats in the guise of kindness and camaraderie. And, of course, thoughts of Obie only served to remind him of the night the asshole had yanked the arc reactor right out of his chest. Remind him of building the arc reactor in the first place. Remind him of sand and blinding sun. Of relentless pain and a heavy weight in his chest.

Of difficulty breathing and shrapnel in his blood.

"Stark?"

The voice sounded like it was coming through water, low, and distorted. Unidentifiable and vaguely menacing. He couldn't breathe. Fuck. How was he back in that damned cave? They were forcing his head under the water again and again and ag--

"Stark!"

"No," he managed, knowing his voice was harsh and half-strangled, "never!"

The unfamiliar voice muttered a string of curses and then called out to a presence that made no sense. "JARVIS? Hey! What's wrong with him?"

He only half-heard the familiar voice reply. "Sir appears to be having a panic attack."

"Shit. How do-- Ah, fuck it. Hey, come on, Stark, breathe. In and out, with me," a pair of arms closed around his shoulders -- their presence making him realise he'd somehow ended up sitting hunched on the floor -- one of them oddly hard and... metallic?

Barnes.

Barnes? What?

It was enough of a jarring note to break through the panic and flashback, and Tony slowly came back to himself. It took him several minutes to calm his breathing, and through it, Barnes' arms stayed tightly wrapped around him.

When Tony relaxed, limp in the aftermath of the attack, the pair of arms around him tightened. It was surprisingly comforting. "You alright, Stark?"

Tony didn't reply, not sure what to think about this new level of weirdness and implicit trust.

After a long minute, Barnes added, "this feels familiar, somehow. Like I've done this before. For someone else."

Uncomfortable with the knowledge that someone he barely knew had just seen him at his weakest, Tony tried to stand with a shrug. It didn't matter that Barnes had immediately looked to JARVIS to help, or that he had managed to pull Tony out of the attack and back to the present. Just the knowledge that it had happened was setting Tony on edge. "Back to work, I guess."

Barnes didn't let him up. "I don't think so. After that, you're going to bed. To sleep."

Tony finally focused on him properly, at that, twisting in the arms that held him more or less pinned. About to launch into the tirade he usually used on Steve for situations like this, he took a better look at Barnes and stopped short. The bandages on his organic arm were spotted with red. Suddenly almost guilty -- Barnes had done that for him, helped him without a thought for his injuries, and Tony'd been about to yell at him -- Tony glared at him. Sufficiently distracted from his own issues, he scolded Barnes with a displeased hiss. "You idiot! You popped your stitches. Bruce is gonna be pissed at both of us."

Barnes didn't respond other than to give him a level look. Tony had to stop him from using the injured arm to get them both to their feet. "I'd say you should get your friend to replace them, but he's asleep, and you should be, too."

Returning the flat look, Tony demanded, "why are you doing this?"

Barnes raised an eyebrow at him. "What?"

"Why are you being all... mother hen? Helping?"

The question got him a shrug in response. "Don't know. Just feels right. Feels like something I can't remember. And you've promised to help me. You can't do that if you're incapacitated. Did you really think I would forget that?"

Tony grumbled a string of curses under his breath. He didn't have a ready response to that statement. "Fine, but you're really putting a crimp in my style, here. Can't you go mother someone else?"

Barnes eyed him, almost suspiciously. "No."

"Ugh, why do I have all the luck? As if Steve wasn't already bad enough."

The puzzled look on Barnes' face made Tony want to laugh. "What?"

"Right, nevermind. You'll see. Probably first thing tomorrow, if you insist on following me around like a lost duckling."

That, naturally, was the moment Dum-E decided to interrupt, poking and prodding at the two of them in approximately equal measure, and making distressed noises over the slowly growing pinpricks of blood that showed on the uppermost layer of Barnes' bandages.

Grumbling about idiot bots and insane assassins, Tony pried Barnes' hands loose and stood, only wobbling once. "Dum-E, first aid kit," he ordered.

Barnes watched Dum-E zoom off to the far side of the large room, open the cabinet next to the door, and grab the requested first aid kit.

Of course, as usual, he knocked everything else in the cabinet onto the floor with a loud crash. Par for the course. Tony made sure to catch the bot's attention when he returned. "Good boy. But what have I told you about making a mess? Go clean that up. Before I trip on it, preferably. U, help him." Barnes was looking at him strangely when Tony dismissed the bot from his attention again. "What?"

"Why do you treat them like three-year-olds?"

"Because they are. Barnes, couch. Sit." Tony pointed to the furniture set opposite his workshop's sidebar and ignored the slightly incredulous look he got. "Come on. I don't bite, and I know enough to patch you up for now. Had to learn the basics to convince P-- my PA to let me do my metalworking."

"Metalworking?" Barnes asked as he approached and settled almost gingerly on the sofa. "I thought you were mostly into electronics."

"What the world at large already knows," Tony quipped almost absently, undoing the bandage on Barnes' arm, "and you don't, is that I? Am a genius and can do more than just one trick."

Barnes snorted. "Right."

The need for further conversation was moot, at that point, because the bandages came away and revealed a mostly bloodsoaked dressing. Tony hissed. "Fuck. That's at least two stitches you've ruined." Barnes would have shrugged. Tony stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "I don't think so. Don't move. You may have some crazy super serum, but I will not have you bleeding all over my workshop. It's a bitch to clean up again afterwards."

Barnes submitted with an amused smirk. "You know, Stark, you're just as much of a mother hen. For all that you try to deny it."

Tony ignored that remark and peeled away the dressing. Barnes clearly had no idea what he was talking about. "Hold this," he pushed it into Barnes' metal hand. And started cleaning up the wound again. "Good news is, you didn't pop them entirely. Bad news is, Bruce is still gonna be pissed."

Digging in the kit for a moment, he found a styptic and used it to stop the sluggish bleed. "You're still probably gonna need those replaced when Bruce wakes up."

"Can't you do it?"

Tony gave him a sardonic look. "Sure, if you want to look like Frankenstein's monster afterward. I do electronics. Not biology."

Barnes shrugged his good shoulder. "Wouldn't be the first time."

"No. We have someone in the building who knows how to do it properly. If you know anything about me, you know I don't like half-assing things. Here's how this is going to work: I'm going to re-wrap this, then get back to work, and you're going to be good and not pop any more stitches."

Barnes locked eyes with him. "No. You're going to get some sleep and continue working in the morning. It's after 0200, Stark."

"So? Wouldn't be the first time I pulled an all-nighter."

"No, Stark. I'll make you a deal. I'll rest and not pop my stitches trying to keep you in one piece, if you sleep so you don't screw up whatever modification it is you're making to that machine."

Tony drew himself up. It was one thing to be mother henned, and another thing entirely to have his skills criticised. "It would take a lot more than one all-nighter to do that. And even if I was that tired, I have J to keep me on track."

"Humour me." Barnes wrapped his prosthetic arm around Tony's bicep and pushed him down to lie on the couch. "I have an interest in making sure this works."

"So do I," Tony retorted. "Steve'd try to throw me through the gym wall or something if this fails."

"Stark," came the slightly exasperated reply, "shut up and sleep a few hours."

Rolling his eyes, but seeing he would get nowhere with his attempts to argue his way out of this, Tony gave in with what dignity he had left, treating Barnes to an irritated glare then closing his eyes.

Morning came more quickly than Tony had expected. It was one of those nights that felt more like he'd blinked and somehow five hours had passed. He stretched... well, tried to. It didn't work thanks to the assassin sprawled half on top of him.

Of course, the moment Tony moved, Barnes woke up. Pushing himself into a sitting position with his uninjured arm, Barnes gave Tony a once over that was almost like a physical touch before he nodded decisively and stood. "You look a lot better. Where's the kitchen?"

Not sure whether to take that as an insult or a compliment, Tony pulled his ankle free of the sofa cushions and sat up, forcing down a loud groan as his muscles and bruises protested. He was _sore_. "Weren't you paying attention last night?"

"Sure, but I wanted to make sure you remembered."

Huffing at Barnes, Tony stood stiffly and walked out of the workshop, assuming he would follow. Each step loosened his posture a little more as his muscles unlocked, but it still hurt like a motherfucker.

Tony decided he would pop a couple of painkillers with his coffee.

Barnes' assertion that Tony was his protection for the time being still bothered the inventor, but there wasn't much he could do about it that wouldn't upset everyone. For now this arrangement was fine.

Besides. Food would go a long way toward waking him up, and he could sic Bruce on Barnes to patch him up properly. That would be fitting revenge.

Once Barnes was being seen to, he could disappear back to the workshop to finish what he was doing. And if Barnes really insisted on staying glued to Tony's side, he'd appear at some point.

The tactic worked pretty well on Pepper, who had a much more highly developed sense of deadlines than he did. Tony suspected Barnes did, too. Or something similar enough to work.

In any case, though, he needed to try to sort through the weird feelings the situation was somehow pulling out of him. Preferably before they attempted the nanite removal. When that happened, he could potentially be stuck in the same room as Barnes for upwards of five hours, keeping an eye on things with Bruce to make sure nothing went sideways.

Stepping into the elevator JARVIS opened for them, Barnes broke his silence. "Odds that the rest of the team is present in the communal area?"

"More or less guaranteed that at least one of them will be. Usually only one or two, but sometimes we all manage to sit down and eat together." Tony watched Barnes pull a hard mask over his features. "Problem?"

It was kind of stunning to trace back the implications of that shift of expression. Barnes trusted him more than Steve right now. Jesus fuck. This was wrong on so many levels. But he couldn't bring himself to break the status quo and tell Barnes to let him work in peace. He knew what it felt like to fight alone for bare survival.

He needed to get that machine up and running, pronto. Luckily it should only take another couple of hours and some rigorous tests.

When they entered the communal kitchen, Barnes was a half step behind Tony. It was empty except for Bruce and Clint. Tony smirked. "Bruce, got a minute," he opened. When he got a nod and a curious look, Tony went on. "Got a favor to ask." Barnes tried to hiss something at him, but Tony ignored it. "Barnes popped his stitches."

Bruce sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I had a feeling he might. Come here, Sergeant."

When Barnes didn't move for a long moment, using the time to try to stare a hole into the side of Tony's head, Clint laughed. "Just go with it, Barnes. I know you don't really have any reason to trust us, but we're not about to try anything. If Thor were here, he'd swear on his family's honor or whatever. He's hardcore like that. Real renaissance man, if you get my drift."

The commentary got a blank stare from Barnes, but he relaxed infinitesimally. Probably because Tony trusted his team. He wasn't sure he deserved that kind of trust. Much less from someone like Barnes.

"Come on, Barnes," he suggested, knowing he was deflecting and not caring. "Let's eat, and then Bruce can patch you up again. I want coffee."

Bruce glared at the assassin. "And don't pop the stitches this time. I'm not going to do it for you a third time."

Clint chimed in, "make a fresh pot, Tony. I want some, too."

Tony flipped off Clint as he rummaged in the cupboard for the tin of drip coffee he kept stocked for the team. It baffled him why they liked it, but he was slowly acquiring a taste for the crap. "Why should I?"

"Because I saved you and Barnes some food. Make me coffee, and you can have it. Be an asshole and I'll eat it myself."

Barnes raised an eyebrow at him, finally breaking his silence. "If he doesn't make you any, I will."

Clint jumped on the statement. "See this, Tony? The new guy has more team solidarity than you do. What would Cap say?"

"Probably that you should drink less coffee," Tony suggested.

Clint broke down in peals of laughter. "Oh, that's rich, coming from you. How many cups do you drink daily?"

Rolling his eyes, Tony set a fresh pot to brewing. "Less than you. JARVIS can corroborate, if you want proof."

In the corner of his vision, Tony saw Bruce carefully approach Barnes and start inspecting the damage. It didn't take long, and after a murmured conversation, Barnes nodded reluctantly.

When the coffee was done, Tony poured cups for himself and Barnes, then with exaggerated grandiose movements, topped off Clint's mug.

Clint saluted him with it, then drank deeply with a contented sigh. "Your coffee always tastes better than Cap's, you know. He manages to scorch it somehow. I thought that was pretty much impossible with this fancy machine of yours."

Handing over a pair of plates, Clint hunkered down in his seat to enjoy his coffee. A silence fell after that. Barnes and Tony ate, and Bruce made idle conversation with anyone who would engage. Sometimes Clint, and sometimes Tony. Barnes stayed silent except for a few words.

When the tines of his fork clicked down on an empty plate, Tony blinked. He hadn't been paying attention and the plate of food had disappeared more quickly than usual. "Right," he chugged the remains of his coffee. "I'm going down to the workshop. Bruce, let JARVIS know if you need anything. I've got some more adjustments and tweaks to make to the machine to be ready to try the nanite removal tonight."

Barnes looked like he wanted to protest.

Tony didn't give him a chance to, ducking out of the room while Bruce had Barnes metaphorically cornered. It sent a pang of what might have been sympathy through him, but didn't dissuade Tony from leaving. He needed to sort himself out, and get that magnet in place that Barnes had made him leave alone last night in favor of sleeping on the couch.

Which... That was another bizarre note in a building storm of them. Why the hell had Barnes decided to sleep with him? No, _on_ him.

Tony was baffled and off balance and didn't like it.

And then there was that little comment about the mother henning feeling familiar and right. So clearly he was remembering some things about his past, already. It was a positive sign, and meant that once the nanites were gone, things should progress pretty quickly, in that regard. But why was he mother henning _Tony_? Wouldn't Steve make a better target for those feelings?

Forcing himself to set the issue aside for a few minutes, Tony picked up the heavy electromagnet he planned to use to separate the nanites out of Barnes' blood. It got mounted and installed in the machine in place of the dialysis membranes that would ordinarily be there. They didn't actually need to dialyse Barnes' blood. Just get the nanites out.

The idea was to capture and hold the nanites with the magnet, hold them until all of them were filtered out. By measuring the interference of the nanites in the magnetic field, JARVIS could keep track of their mass and also let them know when all of the nanites had been strained.

He was halfway through the first system test when JARVIS interrupted him. "Sir, Sergeant Barnes is requesting entry. I believe he is seeking refuge from the attention of the other members of the Avengers."

He wasn't anywhere closer to figuring out why Barnes' attention bothered him. Biting back an irritated sound, Tony nodded. "Fine, let him in."

The sound of the door clicking open was loud in the workshop. Tony had opted not to listen to his music, for the time being.

Barnes pushed the door open and stepped in, immediately scoping out the room and nodding before turning to Tony. "Your friends are weird."

Tony snorted. "Welcome to my life."

"Doesn't it bother you?"

"Nah. I'm not much better." Tony looked over his shoulder at Barnes as the assassin approached. "Not everyone has the mental fortitude to be all regimented in their lives."

"No," Barnes disagreed. "All of your friends can do regimented. It's the things they do when they're not on mission that are strange."

"Ah. Well, you get used to it." Tony let his hands drop to rest on his thighs where he was crouched next to the machine.

Barnes' attention shifted, and it felt like a physical sensation. Tony felt a shiver go over his skin. What would this guy be like when he had his memories back?

Would he still be as intense?

Something told Tony the answer was no.

Clearing his throat, Tony pointed to the adjustments he'd just about finished. "A few more tests, and this should be ready. Are you?"

Barnes watched him for a moment that stretched. "Not a huge fan of needles, but I'll cope."

Tony laughed. "Right, I'll bet. Anyway. This could be a quick thing or it could take a while. All depends on how long ago your last..."

"The last wipe," Barnes finished when Tony trailed off, his tone carefully level and neutral. His expression was equally blank, tightly controlled.

With a nod, Tony continued, trying to smooth out the, admittedly unavoidable, faux pas by ignoring it. "Depends on how long ago your last wipe was. That'll determine how quickly we can filter out the nanites. Could be anywhere from one hour to five. I don't know. But I'll be able to work out when we've got them all thanks to JARVIS' measurement suite."

"When will it be ready?"

"I'm running the system tests. The biggest time chunk will be eaten up by simulations to determine the magnet current. I want to strain out the nanites. Not destroy your arm." That comment got him a slow blink, as though Barnes hadn't even considered that possibility. Tony hastily added, "Don't worry. Magnetic field strength drops off really fast. It's an inverse square relationship to distance from the magnet.[12] I just need to do the simulations and calibrations."

Barnes studied him for a moment, then accepted the explanation. "Keep me informed," he commanded, tone as firm and steady as Steve's had ever been. Walking over to the sofa and sitting down on it, posture straight and eyes focused on something only he could see, Barnes settled in to wait.

Feeling oddly like he'd passed some kind of test, Tony shook his head to clear it and forcibly got himself back on track. "You got those simulation results for me, JARVIS?"

Goddamn but Barnes was one hell of a distraction.

Two and a half hours later, Tony was putting the final touches on his creation. Barnes hadn't moved from his position on the couch, but Dum-E had rolled over to the assassin and started poking at his prosthetic again. Barnes didn't seem to notice, his stare never wavering.

Tony couldn't help but wonder what Barnes remembered. If anything. That looked like Clint's sniper focus. There wasn't anything to focus _on_ in here, though. Tony would know. He'd designed every square inch, himself. From the coffee bar and couch to the ultra modern servers for JARVIS and the holographic keypads for the doors. Hell, he'd also built and installed most of it himself. He wasn't about to let strangers near JARVIS' hardware unless absolutely necessary.

Standing and stretching until the vertebrae in his spine popped back into place properly, Tony felt eyes on him. When he turned to find the source of the feeling, Barnes caught his eyes and gave him a long blatant once over, lingering on his biceps and ass.

"Very nice, Stark."

"I work out." Tony raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't have thought you were interested in men."

The pointed comment only got Tony a shrug. "Not a thing that was widely accepted for a long time. It's not something I ever broadcast."

"And your handlers?"

"Knew. I was sent on several missions that required me to seduce men."

The implication that he'd succeeded hung in the air between them.

"This is not a mission," Tony replied.

"Doesn't mean I can't use the skills at my disposal."

Well. Tony blinked, caught somewhat flat-footed despite himself. "Are you going to?"

"Do you want me to," Barnes shot back.

"Get back to me after the nanites have been dealt with and you have your memories back."

"So get on with it and get your tests done."

Gesturing to the machine with a mocking flourish, Tony gave Barnes his showman's smile. It felt more plastic than usual. "Just finished."

"Good. Then you'd better come up to the kitchen and have dinner."

"I should be telling you that," Tony complained. "I'm not the one who's going to be stuck in a chair for upwards of an hour."

The banter felt weirdly comfortable, and that realisation almost threw Tony off his stride. More than the realisation that Steve's attractive brainwashed assassin best friend was blatantly trying to pick him up. This was going to be awkward as fuck when Steve found out.

To make up for his hesitation, he turned and walked out to the elevator, able to feel Barnes follow, smiling predatorially.

Their meal was quiet and hurried on both their parts, mostly because Bruce, who was supposed to assist with and supervise the nanite removal, had already eaten. And it really went without saying that Barnes wanted the nanites gone yesterday. The other team members were nowhere to be seen. Tony didn't know whether they were carefully making themselves scarce for the duration or just had other things to do. It wouldn't have surprised Tony if Clint and Natasha were at SHIELD, making one more in a series of reports.

Whatever they were doing, Tony dismissed their absence. He had bigger things to worry about. Such as the potential for everything about this to go horribly wrong and end in Barnes trying to kill him and provoking the Hulk in the process.

He got a strange look from the assassin, at that point, and realised he'd been muttering to himself under his breath. Giving Barnes an insouciant smirk, Tony pushed back his plate and stood. "Ready, Barnes? I think Bruce is good to go."

Bruce nodded and Barnes suddenly looked caught between apprehension and excitement, under the blank facade. Tony set aside the knowledge that either he was learning how to read Barnes, or Barnes was letting him in. That was not a distraction he needed right now.

"Come on, Barnes," Tony tried to dispel the undercurrent of uncertainty with a level of confidence he didn't have. Luckily he was damn good at faking it. "I have no desire to piss you off by promising and not delivering, and then watching as you and Hulk thrash things out in my workshop. I've got a lot of delicate things in there."

One more shiver went through Barnes -- Tony could tell Bruce caught it too and was perplexed by it -- before the implacable thousand yard stare was back. Without another word he turned toward the elevators.

Tony threw an arm around Bruce's shoulders and steered the biochemist after their newly acquired assassin. He still hadn't decided which of the Russian Assassin Squad was the more deadly; Natasha and Barnes were both friendly enough until pissed off, and he hadn't seen Barnes really let loose with everything he could do. That much Tony was sure of.

Maybe, he thought to himself as the elevator doors slid silently open, sometime he'd find out.

The trip down to the workshop level was quiet. Neither of the others said a word, and Tony wasn't sure how to break the tension, so he settled for addressing JARVIS. "Everything ready, buddy?"

"Of course, sir. I have taken the liberty of seeing Dum-E and the others settled for the evening."

The machine he'd modified stood in a small alcove away from the windows but with a good view of the rest of the workshop. Tony knew what it felt like to be tethered, and knew it would be exponentially worse for someone like Barnes who was used to defending himself. Against the world, if need be.

He wasn't sure whether Barnes would have said anything if the machine had been placed in a less secure part of the workshop. But after the... the only word for it was kindness... that Barnes had shown him last night, his mental image of the cold resolute mission-driven asset was quickly fading. He hadn't decided how he felt about what was taking its place.

That, even now, caught tightly in the grips of HYDRA's brainwashing, Barnes was able to remember enough to pull him out of a panic attack and mother him was simultaneously comforting and frightening. That was so obviously not something HYDRA would have taught him that it had to be something from before they'd gotten their hands on him.

What would happen when he got his memories back?

Tony found himself hoping that things would not change drastically. Against all common sense, he _liked_ Barnes. Even as off-balance as he was now. As off-balance as they both were, he admitted to himself as the elevator doors opened and he led the other two out, down the short corridor, and into the workshop. Barnes had thrown him for a hell of a loop with that come-on.

He'd meant what he said, though, and he was sticking to it. Until Barnes was free of the nanites and HYDRA's hold on his memories, it would be taking advantage, in a weird way, to say yes. It made Tony feel like the world's creepiest creep. He might sleep around, and he might be bad at relationships, but he knew how they were supposed to work, and he'd made a point of never taking advantage of anyone. All the women who'd graced his bed since his rise to fame had been willing to be there.

And that was the other big sticking point. He hadn't been with a guy in years. Not since he'd been in grad school as a teen and Ty had been willing to pay attention to him. At the time no one else had, and in hindsight he could see that it had been terribly one-sided. But it had been nice. Well, until it hadn't anymore.

Bruce stepped past him, with Barnes in tow, and Tony shook off the memories, forcing himself to set the thoughts aside in favor of the somewhat delicate operation before him.

Unless this improvised solution to the nanite problem worked, all the rest was moot.

When he stepped over to Bruce, the biochemist was explaining the planned procedure to Barnes. "So, first I'm going to get you settled and hooked up to the machine. We'll have to give it a few minutes for all of the flows to stabilise, and then slowly start ramping up the magnet that will capture the nanites. Your part in this is to stay relaxed as best you can, and let us know if the magnet interferes with your prosthetic."

Tony nodded, adding his own support to the statement. "I trust my simulations, but I don't know how sensitive the components in your arm are, so you'll have to help us out, there. That wasn't something I could include in the math, because there were no schematics on that drive you handed me." Barnes scowled, drawing breath for a defensive comment; Tony could see it. He held up a hand and added, "I wasn't asking for any. But without them my calibrations might be a little off."

On the heels of that assertion, Barnes' shoulders relaxed. He still looked a little wary, but he'd apparently accepted that Tony's caution made sense.

Bruce tried to avoid the scrutiny, busying himself with getting Barnes comfortably settled in the reclining chair Tony had acquired for the purpose, and then a little more cautiously hooking Barnes up to the machine. The assassin watched closely, his expression closed and body language wary.

This was the moment Tony was most uneasy about. Either the procedure would go off without a hitch, or not work at all, and he wasn't sure he was ready to face the consequences of either outcome.

Right at this moment, he was glad that Bruce's first aid training had been fairly thorough and included blood draws. That knowledge applied directly, now, and would make this go a lot more smoothly than it might have otherwise.

When Bruce was satisfied everything was in good order he stepped back and nodded. "Your show, Tony. Give everything fifteen minutes to settle into equilibrium and then you can start the filtering process."

The waiting was the most difficult part. Tony was pretty sure Barnes could sense his nerves, but did all he could to mask them, spending the time quadruple checking all of the connections and settings.

Eventually, half an eternity later, Bruce gave him the go-ahead and retired to lounge on the couch where he proceeded to scribble something in a notebook.

Tony caught Barnes' attention. "Last chance to back out."

The comment got him a quickly masked but incredulous look. "I've come this far," Barnes pointed out. "Do it."

"Alright. Magnet current at 10%."

Stepping up the current in increments of 10%, Tony scrupulously checked on the possible effects each time. After the fifth check, Barnes glared at him. "I'm not made of fine china, Stark. I'll let you know if there's a problem."

At 70%, JARVIS notified Tony that the first few nanites had been captured. Hearing that news, Barnes relaxed almost entirely.

Tony was startled by the change; he hadn't realised that Barnes had been so tense over this. But it fit. Tony didn't blame him one bit. That kind of uncertainty was one that would eat away at you every moment of the day, he suspected. He himself had a few blank spots in his memory, courtesy of his hard partying days, but nothing like this.

And then there was the additional complication of the horrifying things HYDRA had forced Barnes to do.

Setting those thoughts aside for later, Tony continued stepping up the current. At 90%, Barnes mentioned a strange tugging sensation in the prosthetic. Stepping the current back down to 85%, Tony checked on him with a glance and got a nod.

Now there was nothing else to do but wait.

"Comfortable, Barnes? Want a book," Tony offered.

"What have you got?"

"J, throw up a list of the electronic copies we have?"

Barnes threw Tony an incredulous look, but said nothing. Left without an indication of what had caused the reaction, Tony just shrugged in reply. Complying with the request, the AI asked, "are you familiar with the manipulation of holographic menus, Sergeant?"

"Pretty sure I can figure it out."

Tony tuned out the discussion as JARVIS walked Barnes through the menus and selecting something to read. He'd long ago adjusted the holographic menus' sensitivity so that he could use them while in the armour, so there was no need to finagle them to work with Barnes' prosthetic.

After that, Bruce checked on Barnes every fifteen minutes or so, until he got growled at. Apparently interruptions to his reading irritated Barnes. Tony carefully kept his amusement to himself.

In the end it took just under three hours for JARVIS to give them the alert that the amount of captured nanites had stabilised. Barnes had burned through three different books on politics and economics, in the interim. He watched carefully without comment as Bruce approached and began disconnecting him from the machine.

It was only when Bruce had very gently coerced Barnes into drinking some juice and was satisfied that Barnes was fine that he gathered up his notebook and left with a nod at Tony. That probably meant he wanted to see JARVIS' data sets later.

Tony intended to ask Barnes first.

Other ethical issues aside, Tony suspected that just giving Bruce free access wouldn't go over well.

"So," he caught Barnes' attention, "how do you feel?"

"The same as I did three hours ago."

"Well, now it's a waiting game," Tony offered. "What do you want to do?"

Barnes shrugged carelessly with one shoulder. "If I leave, I'll only be pursued. Might as well stay here."

"I guess I can put you up for a while. But you might want to consider letting the rest of the team introduce themselves properly," Tony watched him intently. "Not that I don't like you, but it's difficult to work like this."

Barnes' face shuttered, and Tony knew he'd made a misstep.

"Give me, I don't know, six hours to catch up, will you? I have a bunch of confidential contracts I need to finish out," he tried to salvage the situation. "I'd let you stay, but those kinds of contract violations make me look bad, and the media always picks up on them sooner or later."

Barnes' expression didn't change.

Tony cursed under his breath. "Look, Barnes, I have obligations besides working with this group of asylum inmates that call themselves a superhero team. I'm not CEO anymore, but I can't completely drop everything for extended periods of time and not pay for it somehow."

Obviously a change of subject was in order.

"Anyway, that aside, I have to ask you something."

"What."

Tony only just managed to contain his frustrated huff at the shortness of the reply. "Bruce is gonna want to look at JARVIS' readings later. If you don't want him to, you'd better tell me. And I want to keep a literal handful of the nanites to analyse their programming."

Barnes considered that for a long minute. "What readings?"

"Nothing very invasive. Heart rate, blood oxygen, accumulation rate of the nanites, that kind of thing."

"Fine. What do you intend to do with the nanites?"

Tony considered his words carefully, turning to his main workstation for a moment to issue a command to JARVIS through their GUI to stow away the abandoned book projection. "I want to try to figure out how they work. If I know that, I think I can figure out how to reverse it, if you don't recover your memories on your own. I also think I can find a way to prevent them from working, on the off chance that there's a next time."

"I get to supervise." The statement sounded almost tentative, despite the way it was phrased.

When Tony took a closer look at the assassin, Barnes looked almost haunted, but determined. Tony nodded. "That's fair. It'll get very technical, though."

"I don't care."

"Alright. J, make a note. When I work with the nanites Barnes should be notified, if he isn't already here."

"Very well, sir. Is there anything else?"

"Yeah. Get me a lead lined box until I can dispose of these nanites properly. I'm going to have to EMP them and then incinerate the remains. It counts as a biohazard, given that there's blood in the mix."

When Dum-E rolled over with the requested box, Tony stepped over to the dialysis machine and removed the entirety of the tubing and filtration systems all at once. Once he had all of it, he put the whole mass into the box and offered it to Barnes. "Hold onto this for a few hours. If you want, I'll take you on a field trip to a quiet spot upstate to destroy those, in the morning. I can do it here, too, but that takes more preparation. Lots of sensitive electronics around."

Barnes took the box, his expressionless mask in place. Tony suspected he wasn't sure how to feel about being free of the nanites. He could relate. He still wasn't sure how he felt about his decision to have the arc reactor removed. He'd had it for so long that he still sometimes panicked if the room was dark when he woke. The association of his survival with that pale blue light was hard to shake, it had gotten so ingrained.

After a few seconds Barnes found his voice. "Thank you."

Tony tried to wave it off. "Someone had to do it, and I'd rather it was me than SHIELD or any of the other shadowy government agencies. We'd be able to do fuck all to help you, at that point."

With a nod, Barnes walked over to the workshop door, then paused. "Stark," he said, serious, before he opened the door, "I owe you one."

"No, you don't, but if it makes you feel better..."

"It does."

"Hmph." Tony couldn't help the crooked smile he felt tugging at his lips. "Go get some rest."

"If you're still in here at midnight, I'm hauling you out over my shoulder," Barnes shot back.

"Mother hen. You're worse than Steve."

"Not hardly, Stark. Not hardly." The box braced against his hip, Barnes let the door fall shut behind him and only barely hesitated before stepping into the elevator.

Tony knew JARVIS would see that he reached the correct floor, so he put Barnes back out of his mind as best he could. These days that was proving surprisingly difficult, he acknowledged as he pulled up the first of the three contracts that was coming due.

He only resurfaced from the haze of design-simulate-tweak-simulate several hours later. JARVIS had to tell him about Barnes' presence four times before it registered properly, and even then it was only because he was suddenly upside-down over a partly metallic shoulder. "I feel I should mention," he quipped, "that carrying me off to bed doesn't work."

Barnes snorted at him, amused, like he hadn't just somehow managed to conspire against Tony with JARVIS. "You'll see. My plans are foolproof."

"Tchyeah, right." Tony braced himself against Barnes' lower back with his forearms so that his face wouldn't be bouncing off Barnes' lovely assets. It made his bruises twinge and he swallowed down a hiss of pain. "You keep telling yourself that, Barnes. You seem to have forgotten who you're dealing with."

"And you seem to have forgotten that I warned you I was going to see you to bed."

Why that statement was so effective, Tony couldn't say. No, that wasn't strictly true. He knew, but acknowledging the truth of it wasn't happening. Not while Barnes was still recovering. "Coming on kinda strong, here, you know."

"I've heard that approach works best with people like you."

"If you've been asking Barton for advice," Tony drawled, manfully resisting the temptation to grope Barnes' ass, where it flexed inches from his face, "I have to tell you; he's very happy to share his ideas, but they're pretty universally bad."

The elevator doors opened, and Barnes stepped out of the car. Tony recognised his foyer.

"I got that much. Barton seems to have very strange ideas of what constitutes stepping out together."

Tony groaned. "Not you too."

"What?"

"I already had to explain modern slang to Steve, and that was embarrassing on so many levels. For both of us."

Rather than reply verbally, Barnes slung him back over the strong shoulder that had been digging into the pit of Tony's stomach, and onto his feet.

"Well hello there," Tony quipped, suddenly face to face with his kidnapper.

"Strip."

Tony blinked, surprised. "Errr, what?"

Impatience settled over Barnes like a cloak. "Strip down and get in bed, or so help me, I'll do it for you."

For just a moment, Tony was tempted to push the limits and see what would happen. But a good look at Barnes' determined face dissuaded him. Rolling his eyes, Tony gave in, gingerly peeling off the t-shirt that had gotten covered in engine grease somehow. He didn't know how; he hadn't been working on his engines all day. Sometimes he wondered if he was just statically charged or magnetised to attract any grease in a three meter radius. Tossing the shirt at the hamper in the corner of the room with his uninjured arm, he asked with a challenging tone, "you gonna tuck me in?"

"If I have to." Barnes' smirk promised all the trouble he could handle.

Maybe, if this memory thing worked out in their favor, he could let himself see where this went. Barnes promised to be a lot of fun.

It was rare that Tony found someone who could keep up with him. Barnes made it look effortless.

That was, Tony had to admit as he slid out of his jeans, a better argument in favour of keeping the man than any that had been raised so far.

Of course, it also helped that Barnes was eyeing him from head to toe in a very promising kind of way.

"Alright, Stark. Under the covers. If you try to leave before 0700 tomorrow, I will hunt you down and make you suffer."

Tony raised an eyebrow at him. "Is that so."

The smirk he got in return was stunning in its simultaneous sweetness and evil. "Damn right it is. I've got your number, Stark." He pointed at the covers that Tony only now noticed had been artistically turned down. Barnes had planned this in more detail than Tony could have expected. "Get. In. The bed."

Tony couldn't help but do his best to get some of his own back, after this surprisingly thorough defeat. Drawing on everything he'd learned over the course of his long and checkered history, he slowly bent at the waist to pick up his jeans and ball them up. "Just a second," he temporised.

Sauntering over to the hamper this time, he made a show of the movements, doing everything he could to show off the trim lines of the muscle he knew he had. Let Barnes look and lust a little, himself.

Catching Barnes' eye, he added. "I'll be right there, darling. I've got to powder my nose."

It startled a sound out of Barnes that _almost_ qualified as a chuckle. "Fine. I know that bathroom's a cul-de-sac. Go brush your teeth or whatever. Take a painkiller for those bruises."

Somewhat against his will, Tony obeyed. Knowing that he would have to fight both assassin and AI to get back to his workshop was a very substantial kind of dissuading force. But on the other hand, it felt like he was giving in too easily.

Barnes was, predictably, waiting for him to reappear, so he could finish the job he'd set himself. "Here's the plan," he opened, not giving Tony a chance to short circuit the discussion. "You're going to sleep for at least six hours. Then, tomorrow morning, you'll show me where in the building you plan to destroy those nanites."

"I can begin the preparations now, Sergeant," JARVIS interjected, "if you wish to deal with the issue here. But I must caution you that the EMP used to deactivate them may also interfere with your prosthetic."

Barnes shook his head. "I've asked you not to call me that, JARVIS. That's not who I am anymore."

Tony stared, outright, not sure what was unfolding in front of him. When the fuck had JARVIS and Barnes bonded?

"Until such time as you choose a new designation," the AI retorted, "I shall continue to use the one rightfully yours by birth and your enrolment in the US Army. Furthermore, as your memories continue to resurface, you may find the title more apt than you think it now."

That last wasn't a question or a suggestion, but JARVIS giving orders. Holy shit.

Sometime in the last twenty-four hours, his AI had adopted Steve's wayward best friend, and was treating him accordingly.

Barnes bowed his head for a long moment, and when he looked up, a hint of relief showed at the corners of his eyes. "For now, JARVIS," he acceded. "For now.

When Barnes' attention swung back to Tony, who stood stunned and staring at him, he raised an eyebrow. "Thought I told you to get in the damn bed."

Tony gave in. He threw back the topmost layer of blankets and slid under the topsheet to settle himself comfortably in the bed. "Happy?"

Barnes draped himself over the foot of the bed, just below Tony's feet. "Ecstatic."

"Whatever. Don't blame me if you get kicked."

"I've had worse bed partners, Stark. Shut up and go to sleep."

Feeling caught between confusion, amazement, and vague apprehension, Tony grumbled a phrase under his breath that made Barnes smirk in amusement, and closed his eyes.

Morning came hard on the heels of several formless, yet threatening, dreams. When he came awake with a gasp, Barnes was already awake and watching him warily. Ready to intervene if necessary, Tony realised with a jolt. It was a little unsettling how protective Barnes was getting to be of him. And how quickly.

Barnes broke the silence. "You with me, Stark?"

Tony nodded, searching for words.

He got a nod in return. "JARVIS," Barnes asked, "everything ready?"

"Everything that does not require sir's assistance. Dum-E, U, and Butterfingers do not have the dexterity for such tasks. Perhaps you both might consider breakfast?"

Tony stretched languidly, feeling more like himself already and gingerly testing the limits of his range of movement. The ache of the bruises was getting old fast, with the way it brought him up short anytime he tried to reach above his head. He refused to acknowledge that Barnes' presence was in large part the cause of his quick mental recovery. "What do I have in my kitchen, J?"

"I took the liberty of restocking the refrigerator, sir, so there are a number of options, including french toast."

Before Tony could haul himself upright, Barnes interjected. "You aren't joining the others for your meal?"

"Coffee first."

Tony was glad Barnes didn't make a fuss about the nightmares, or push to know what they were. He wouldn't have been able to put words to them even if he'd wanted to.

Twenty-five minutes later, fed, caffeinated, and more alert, Tony was leading Barnes down into a well-reinforced room on the floor below the workshop. Tucked into a corner near the arc reactor powering the building, it occupied a space that nothing else really fit in. With circular, rebar-reinforced concrete walls, electromagnetic insulation, a door made from the same materials as the walls, and no outside power connections, it was as near a perfect isolation room as Tony could build for electronics in a building as modern and well-connected as the Tower. The only light in the room at the moment came from the outside corridor. Even JARVIS didn't have much influence in here. He turned and fixed Barnes with a look.

"Set the box down in the center of the room, lid open," he instructed, gesturing to the box containing the filtered nanites. "I'm going to set up the EMP, take my sample to study, and then we're both leaving the room. The EMP is on a timer, and will go off one minute after I start the countdown. I don't want you in here when it goes off."

Silently, Barnes complied. His eerie calm was setting Tony on edge. There had to be a lot of conflicting thoughts and emotions behind that mask, but none of them showed. Pushing that aside for the moment, Tony took out an eppendorf tube[13] he'd stolen from Bruce's stash, drew out a couple of drops of the filtered nanites, then sealed the tube and tucked it safely into a sample case. It would go into his safe alongside the hard drive Barnes had given him until he had sufficient time and privacy to look into the issue.

Barnes watched him carefully; their weird level of intuitive trust notwithstanding, the assassin was justifiably cautious about the nanites. Tony suspected that it was only the tiny amount that he'd asked for that had convinced Barnes to let him take any. A bare handful of nanites were unlikely to be useful for anything other than Tony's stated plan to reverse engineer them.

Tony suppressed a wince as he set up the EMP and the timer. The amount of nanites that they'd managed to filter out had massed nearly a gram. It was borderline insane. Either HYDRA had injected multiple different design iterations into him without bothering to remove the obsolete versions or they'd simply taken their usual brute force approach and injected a large amount of nanites, rather than dosing them properly.

Barnes caught his attention. "Stark?"

"Yeah?"

"Is there a problem?"

Realising he'd been absently staring off into space for several seconds, Tony stood and dusted off the knees of his pants. "No. Just thinking. Starting the countdown in three... two... one... mark." With a press of the button to start the timer, Tony put a hand on Barnes' prosthetic shoulder and gestured to the door. "After you."

The actual event itself was anticlimactic. The room, with its Faraday cage built into the walls and thick insulated walls, contained the EMP effortlessly. At the two minute mark, Tony reopened the door of the room, and checked the timer. It had been burned out by the EMP. "Well, that's all she wrote. We'll bring these up to the workshop to make sure they're dead, and then dispose of them. We'll use the autoclave in Bruce's lab. Ought to burn hot enough to melt the electronics -- it destroys MEMS and NEMS[14], after all -- and it's intended for organics and plastics."

A half hour later, satisfied that the autoclave was far enough into its cycle that the nanites couldn't be retrieved, Barnes turned to Tony. "And what about the base in Canada?"

JARVIS answered before Tony could. "I believe Captain Rogers is planning an assault on that base this afternoon. Sir's presence is requested on the helipad in an hour." The AI paused just long enough to indicate that he was addressing Tony, now, rather than Barnes. "Sir, I would suggest a proper meal and another dose of painkillers prior to any mission."

Barnes' expression showed a hint of amusement. "Your AI gives good advice, Stark. You gonna take it?"

"I swear we've had the conversation about your mother hennish tendencies before, Barnes," Tony retorted, but allowed the assassin to stare him down. Giving in was easier than dealing with the lecture he'd get from Steve later. And with the way Barnes was acting, that lecture would probably be repeated.

This time they ended up in the communal kitchen. No one but Natasha was there, and Tony was just fine with that. To his surprise, though, so was Barnes. Had the team managed to win him over?

The way Barnes tensed when he felt Natasha's eyes on him answered that question. It was a good front, but a front nevertheless. Both of them ignored the reaction. Tony was pretty sure Natasha was laughing at the scene they made. An injured assassin trying to force food on Tony wasn't a common sight. Clint had never bothered, preferring to just snark at Tony until he ate. Natasha usually simply stared him down. Barnes' methods were closer to Steve's.

On proper reflection, Tony suspected that was where Steve had picked up the habit.

For that matter, the way Steve had talked about Barnes on the few instances he'd been willing to talk about his best friend had been a pretty clear indication of their relationship. Or so Tony had thought. He was re-evaluating that conclusion now. It had sounded like Steve and Bucky had either been an item or platonic life partners. But despite that, Steve and Barnes had yet to spend more than five minutes together. And Barnes himself was spending a mountain of time with Tony.

And mothering him.

Tony wasn't sure how he felt about it, either. Really, he wasn't. He was enjoying having someone around who was quick enough and stubborn enough to keep up with him, but he really wasn't sure whether he wanted more than that. Or, no. He wanted more, but he wasn't sure it was a good idea. For either of them.

A plate landed in front of him, pulling Tony back out of his thoughts, and he glanced up at Barnes.

Barnes stared back. "Eat."

Tony smirked, and decided to tempt fate. Playing with fire was half the fun of life. "Make me."

Natasha snorted. "Flirt somewhere else."

Barnes ignored the commentary, a smirk of his own taking hold. "You sure you don't want to take that back, Stark?"

It was only because of Natasha's presence and willingness to use her skills on him that Tony reconsidered. "I'll let you off the hook this time," he quipped, taking the plate and stepping over to the breakfast bar. He didn't let himself look at Barnes' expression beyond a quick glance. The mixed, but well hidden, relief and disappointment were oddly compelling, and Tony felt weirded out again by the way he could read Barnes. Or that Barnes was letting him. "If I have to eat, so do you," he groped after a distraction. "Get a plate, Barnes."

It was telling that Barnes raised no objections; clearly he was hungry.

"Hey, Natasha," Tony called after he'd taken a few bites, "what's the play on the base we're taking down today?"

She shrugged. "Nothing complicated. You, Steve, and I are going. Clint is on mission with Coulson and Bruce has requested a few days to recover from all the travel."

Barnes looked up at that, his meal temporarily forgotten. "I'm going with you."

Tony gave him a flat look. "No. You're staying here. That arm of yours needs time to heal, and the three of us have got it covered. I can fly a quinjet just as well as Clint can. Natasha's almost as good."

"You're going into a HYDRA base that was already hiding extra men once and not expecting a trap? You'll be at a disadvantage with half your team absent," Barnes sized him up, clearly preparing himself to argue this as long as necessary. "You stuck your neck out for me once already, and you're still injured because of it."

Natasha made a sound like she'd been given some kind of deep insight, but she said nothing. Tony glared right back at Barnes. "So we should bring you along, knowing that you're injured too, and liable to get hurt worse trying to use that arm... _and_ in full knowledge that HYDRA will do their utmost to retake you? That's not going to be a distraction _at all_ , Barnes.

"And we should, what, call in Bruce despite his request not to follow us into this little 'situation'," Tony went on, tone challenging. "We should call in Barton? 'Hey, sorry, we need you, you'll have to cancel your SHIELD op'?"

Barnes growled a curse under his breath, but he was forced to concede the point. "Then don't go."

Natasha stood, gracefully, and took the few steps over to join the discussion properly. "Do you have some intel that we don't?"

Tony wanted to run a hand over his face. Why hadn't he thought to ask that question?

Barnes looked conflicted for a long moment. "No. Just a feeling. A very bad feeling."

Steve picked that moment to enter the room. He froze midstep, feeling the tension crackling through the room. "Am I interrupting something?"

Rather than answer, Barnes hightailed it out of the room.

"Shit." Tony sighed and waved Steve to a seat. "You're not interrupting. We were... discussing... the base assault you've planned for today. He has a hunch that it's a trap," Tony explained. He didn't bother explaining who he meant; it was pretty obvious. "He thinks it'll be a more vicious one than before and wants in on the assault."

Steve scowled. "He's still got a gunshot wound in his arm."

Tony raised an eyebrow at his team leader. "He seems to think the threat to us outweighs going into the fight injured. And I'm inclined to trust his instincts, but I'm not sure what we can do to swing the odds in our favor."

"Perhaps we should talk to Bruce," Natasha suggested.

Steve looked surprised. "He thinks this warrants bringing in the Hulk?"

Tony nodded. "He does. I get the feeling that something has him spooked, and I want to know what."

"Well, we won't find out unless we take out that base," Steve pointed out.

Tony turned to his plate and crammed the rest of his sandwich into his mouth as he left the room with a mocking half-salute. As he hit the elevator doors, he heard Natasha comment to no one, "this ought to be interesting."

As the elevator descended, Tony asked, "JARVIS, is the suit restocked on munitions?"

"It is, sir."

The pause that followed strongly suggested that the AI had something else to add, but wasn't sure how it would be received. Tony glanced up into the camera mounted discreetly in the corner of the car. "Out with it, J."

"I feel I should mention that Sergeant Barnes has armed himself and is currently waiting for the team on the helipad."

Tony sighed. "I guess he won't let us persuade him not to leap into the jaws of death with us."

"I fear you are correct, sir. It seems he feels strongly that you could use the help."

"Armour me up, JARVIS," Tony demanded as he strode through the workshop door. "Let's get this over with."

The AI paused, an uncharacteristically solemn silence falling over the workshop as he assembled the armour around Tony. "Do be careful, sir. For all his relative instability, Sergeant Barnes has excellent instincts. If he is worried..."

Even his AI was taking cues from the assassin. This was getting ridiculous. "I'll have you right there with me. You'll probably know before I do if something goes wrong. If something _does_ , call Bruce and Barton. SHIELD won't have the firepower to back us up against the entirety of HYDRA, if it comes to that."

"Yes, sir."

Tony huffed, amused despite everything. "Come on, J. Stiff upper lip. Contingency plans aside, we'll be fine."

"I do hope you are right."

By the time Tony reached the helipad, the rest of the team had assembled already, and Steve was engaged in a stubborn stare-down with Barnes. Tony took a moment to admire the figure Barnes cut in his gear. The hole in the right sleeve hadn't been repaired yet, but he'd found time to clean the blood off the half-jacket. Tony hadn't really ever thought he had a thing for buckles, but Barnes was making a very convincing case, here.

Shaking off the thoughts, he made a snap decision. "Hey, Barnes, if they don't want you on the plane, you can fly with me. Pretty sure you can handle the cold, if you put your stubborn mind to it."

Barnes' eyes all but lit up with an unholy joy.

Steve made a face, out-maneuvered and irritated by it. "I don't think so. We'd end up dealing with him afterwards while he passes around the cold he catches. He's riding in the jet, if at all. And I still say no."

Tony laughed outright, the suit's voice modulation making it sound dark and harsh. "Come on, Steve. I know you want to protect him twice as much, now that there's a chance he'll remember you as more than just the guy who fought him to a standstill in DC, but he'll only find a way out there on his own if you try to bench him. You know that as well as I do. "

Steve gave in with a nod, resignation written into the set of his shoulders. It was something that only happened rarely, and Tony knew to savour it for the victory it was, even if Barnes had helped him win it.

"Fine," Steve grumbled. "But he's your problem, Iron Man. Keep him out of trouble."

"Sure, sure," Tony agreed quickly. "We'll work it out."

Barnes caught his attention. "And you'll take me flying properly some other time."

Steve almost tripped over air as he walked up the loading ramp and into the belly of the quinjet, caught off guard by the comment. Tony smirked, wondering if they could get more such reactions out of Steve. He knew the others could still hear them. Barnes probably did, too. Tony was pretty sure Barnes didn't care. "We'll see. Maybe if you behave today."

Natasha followed Steve, leaving the two of them temporarily alone on the helipad.

Barnes watched her go, thoughtful, then quipped, "I thought you liked it better when I misbehaved."

A strangled sound came from Steve. Natasha said something to Steve about flirting and idiots that Tony didn't catch. Tony snickered. Okay. Maybe this wasn't so bad. "Fine. I'll rephrase. I don't want to see you reinjure your arm if you can avoid it. Here." Tony held out the HYDRA blaster he'd taken during their first assault, in Alsace. "This could be useful if you run out of ammo again."

Barnes took it and turned it over in his hands, checking the gun. "Thanks."

"If you're coming, get on the jet, Bucky," Steve yelled.

Knowing that Natasha would more than likely do her best to subtly pry details out of Barnes while they traveled, Tony offered the assassin a shrug. "Go. I'll be pacing the jet. No time to get you a comm unit. See you when we get there."

Tony passed the next two and a half hours in relative silence. He entertained himself by discussing his next round of armour upgrades with JARVIS.

When JARVIS highlighted his GPS on the HUD to alert him that the team was less than five minutes out from their objective, Tony felt anticipation settle in him.

A chance to really let loose and fight would almost be nice, at this point, he reflected. So far he hadn't had a chance to actually take part in the assault of any of the HYDRA bases they'd hit except this one, and he hadn't been able to see this one properly finished.

Not that he regretted getting Barnes out of the line of fire instead.

As he finished the thought, JARVIS scrubbed the GPS off the HUD and replaced it with an urgent alert. "Sir, you have incoming," he reported.

Faster than he would have believed possible, a missile had approached, its tiny radar profile making it come seemingly out of nowhere, and hit one of the quinjet's wings. To Tony's horror, the craft wobbled and started to fall out of the sky to accompanying shouts from Cap and Widow on the comm line.

Putting on a burst of speed, Tony positioned himself under the quinjet's belly and braced it, slowing its uncontrolled fall with his bootjets as best he could. There was no time to do anything else. "Somebody give me some covering fire," he gritted out as warnings started blaring on the HUD. "This is going to be a rough landing."

His plan forced him to put a lot of strain on the bootjets, and left him preoccupied with trying to effectively balance the entire mass of the quinjet on a single point. While also compensating for the recoil from the craft's guns. It was like trying to balance on a pair of independently moving pogo sticks while someone threw bowling balls at him.

An ominous creaking groan sounded, followed by a sharp crack, and the palm of his right gauntlet caved under the strain, the force concentrations[15] caused by the quinjet's weight overwhelming the metal's ability to undergo reversible deformation[16]. That left him down a repulsor, too.

Fuck.

Knowing that it would make firing much more difficult for whoever was on the guns, Tony decided to cut the jets, which were starting to overheat, and make a break for the ground. If he could put down the jet, the others would be free to come out and help him, and he could defend himself again.

The ground was only fifty meters away now. At thirty, he cued his bootjets again, slowing their descent and trying to aim for a soft spot.

It only halfway worked. His bootjets fired for forty-four seconds before sputtering and giving out. He was able to get just enough thrust output out of them to let him bring the quinjet into a momentary hover before they began to overheat. They weren't designed to take this kind of sustained load. Forced to decide whether to use his only remaining repulsor to drop the jet and roll free or go down with the metaphorical ship and hope the suit could handle the impact, Tony rolled right, swearing creatively into the comm. "Guys, brace yourselves. I've got no power left. Got to drop the jet!"

The jet could take a fall from thirty meters. So could its passengers. Probably.

The ground was coming up fast, now, reminding Tony of his very first self-imposed mission in Afghanistan. It had gone down similarly; he'd been knocked out of the air by a tank shell the size of a baseball. It had left him with deep bruises all over his body for two weeks.

This was probably going to be just as bad, and he was already bruised all over his left side.

The only good thing about this was that his team was still alive to yell at him about it.

When he hit the ground, he got the breath knocked out of him and lay there for a moment, dazed. The cushioning system he'd built into the armour still worked like a charm, but it couldn't disperse all of the momentum of that kind of fall.

"Iron Man! Report!"

Cap sounded worried.

After a moment, Tony managed, "Ow?"

"Stay where you are, Iron Man, we can take it from here."

Pulling in a stuttering breath, Tony groaned. "For now, Cap. Everyone in there in one piece?"

"Widow has a few bumps and bruises, but Bucky and I are fine," came the response. In the background Tony thought he heard Barnes growl, 'I thought I told you not to call me that.'

Tony didn't bother to move; he watched the others start to gingerly climb out of the quinjet, which lay at an angle, rather than level, the damaged wing having caught on the ground and torn a deep gouge in the dirt as the jet skidded under the momentum of its flight and fall. He'd only just had enough time to get his bearings when JARVIS put up a new alert. "Sir, you may wish to stand up for this."

"Fuck. Guys, we're about to have company! Look alive," he called out. Cap looked up from where he'd been helping Natasha out of the jet. As he finished the sentence, a long column of HYDRA goons came pouring out of the sparse forest surrounding their crash site.

"J, ditch the flashing error messages. Just let me know when the bootjets are operational again." Tony pushed himself to one knee and started firing with his one remaining repulsor. After a beat, Cap's shield started ricocheting around the area, as he threw himself into the fight.

There were a lot more goons here than last time, just in this initial wave alone. Tony cursed. Barnes had been right. It was a trap. For all of them, this time.

Widow did a tumbling roll and came up at his right side to take out a couple of goons that had been trying to flank him, and that was when Tony realised something important. He hadn't seen Barnes since he'd exited the downed jet.

It was like the thought had summoned him; three shots rang out from a point higher on the hillside to the jet's port side. Immediately afterward, a shout went up from the HYDRA goons and they began trying to make a push toward Barnes' position.

Natasha had her hands full trying to help keep the goons from overrunning them, and Steve was being forced to fight harder than he had in months.

That left Tony to go support Barnes. It would have seemed like a bad idea to either of the others, he knew, but Tony was fine with that role. He didn't bother to waste time on why; there was a fight on.

By the time he'd crossed half the distance between his position and Barnes', he was fighting for air in the close confines of his suit and Barnes was running low on ammunition. Tony could tell by the careful way he placed each shot. Barnes was firing a lot more slowly than he had been at the beginning of the fight.

When the shots stopped for several seconds, the HYDRA goons exchanged looks even Tony could see, and charged forward. Tony swore under his breath; Barnes was out of shots, and the goons knew it. "We got those thrusters back, J?"

"No, sir. They are cooling more slowly than initially predicted."

Tony sucked in a pained breath and fought his way farther up the hillside, all but wading through unconscious HYDRA goons and knocking out a few more as he moved. Barnes resumed shooting, this time with the blaster Tony had pushed into his hands back at the Tower, and Tony unsuccessfully fought a wild grin.

Once he finally reached Barnes' position, the assassin dropped down out of his perch in his chosen tree, taking up position on Tony's right. "What do you think you're doing, idiot," he snarled.

"Saving your ass," Tony shot back, repulsoring a goon that had tried to circle around. "It's you they're gunning for the hardest, here. You needed the backup."

"And you could have sent the Widow."

"You prefer her over me?" Tony sniffed as they renewed their assault on the waves of goons. Soon there would be a pile of them for newcomers to climb over, Tony saw. The entire area around the quinjet was littered with HYDRA goons.

"Iron Man," Cap interrupted his thoughts, "status?"

"Just peachy," he replied. "When I get my flight capability back, this will be more fun."

In retrospect, Tony should have known better than to challenge the universe. A moment later, a lucky shot took out his other palm repulsor.

"Shit fuck," Tony swore. "Barnes, I've got no offensive capability left for the moment except my fists and a few knockout darts. Don't worry about me, though. I've got armour."

No flight stabilizers, though. And without the quinjet, they were stuck. Even if they managed to take out the base, they'd be waiting for pickup. Possibly overnight. "J, see if you can get my private jet out here, somehow, would you? Might be the simplest way home after the fight."

"Of course, sir."

The remaining goons had been hanging back, but now, sensing that Tony had almost no weaponry left to work with, they began pressing the attack.

The new intensity of the attack pulled a growl out of Barnes, and his expression suddenly smoothed out. Tony shivered. That was the Winter Soldier. Or part of him, anyhow. Tony doubted it could be pure Winter Soldier when it was in someone's defense, rather than for straight up assassination or whatever else HYDRA had used him for. And 'used' was definitely the word.

Barnes fought implacably now, taking hits he could have avoided, but he ruthlessly laid out his enemies in the process. Tony was sure they would be replacing some more stitches after this little escapade.

It was a hard won victory, but slowly the team managed to turn the tide of the battle in their favour. It took another fifteen long minutes for the fight to die down. Tony took out the last few stragglers with his darts, and turned to Barnes. "Hey," he called, only getting a slow blink in reply. He tried again. "Hey, Barnes, you okay in there?"

Despite the intensity of the fight, they couldn't stop yet for all that they were tired. They needed to go in and demolish the base, before they could consider the mission finished.

Looking around the area, Tony groaned. "This is going to be a fun debrief."

Natasha snorted. "Easy for you to say. I'll be the one giving it."

Steve walked over to join them. "We still need to blow up the base and figure out how we're getting home before we worry about the debrief."

Faintly worried, Tony verbally prodded at Barnes. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Barnes finally spoke.

The flat tone sent another shiver through Tony. "Alright, Barnes, let's go. You're coming with me to help me rig my half of the base. Cap and Widow are taking the other half."

Luckily for Tony's nerves, the remaining mission objectives went off without a hitch. He was not moving for a week when he got back to New York, he decided, given that he was already feeling sore and bruised, and it would only get worse before it got better.

The short walk to the base felt like it took half an eternity, with Tony carrying Barnes' share of the explosives to spare his injured arm as best they could and basically limping along behind the others. He kept getting worried looks from Cap, which, though justified, annoyed him.

Setting the explosives was a quick job, once they finally got to the base. An hour later, the team was watching from a safely removed hillside as the base went up in literal and figurative smoke.

Now, the main problem was that they didn't have a ride home, and they were stuck in the middle of nowhere, Canada.

That much, at least, he could remedy.

"JARVIS," he asked, "you got those flight plans filed?"

"I submitted them when the base demolition went to plan, sir," the AI replied, displaying a map on the HUD for Tony to examine, with the team's position marked relative to the few settlements in the area. "Your private jet can depart at any time. It would be arriving with a travel delay of approximately four hours. There is a small airfield to the north of Eagle Plains."

Tony raised an eyebrow at his HUD, in place of his AI's cameras. "That's over a hundred klicks away, and I currently can't fly."

"It is, nevertheless, the closest airfield. The remaining errors in the suit's thrusters are minor, sir. With sufficient care, you could reach the airfield in under a half hour."

Tony groaned and put up the faceplate. "Cap," he called, deciding he needed their strategist's attention, "we need to call a vote."

"On what?"

"How we get home."

That got everyone's attention.

"What do you mean," Widow was the first to speak.

"Well," Tony gave her a sardonic look, "we're stuck in the middle of absolute nowhere, right now. The nearest road worth the name is something like 85 kilometers to the west northwest. The nearest town with an airfield is about 110 kilometers to the north northwest[17]. I can't fly, nor can the quinjet, and we have no ground transportation except our feet. We have the bare minimum in survival equipment, and not a lot in the way of weapons."

Barnes grumbled something unintelligible that sounded like a vicious swear in Russian before he spoke up more clearly. "So what are you proposing, Stark?"

"I'm not in a position to propose anything, considering I'm the biggest liability we have right now. But I can have my private jet meet us in Eagle Plains, if that's where we choose to go."

Barnes glared at him from his position next to Cap, but it was Cap who made a sharp gesture and spoke. "Stow that talk. You're about as far from a liability as it's possible to be. If we managed to get to the road, it would make for an easier trip to the town, right?"

Their expressions were similarly irritated and that was almost enough to amuse Tony despite the injuries that were making themselves known again. Pulling himself together, Tony replied. "Yes," he nodded, "but it would also make the trip a lot longer."

"Can't you have someone come meet us at the road? Or out here, if there's a convenient logging road or something," Widow suggested.

"JARVIS?"

The AI replied over Tony's speakers so that all of them could hear. "There do appear to be a few logging roads, but they are not easily passable with a normal road vehicle, and describing where the driver should go will be difficult, as they do not have official designations. However, if the four of you are willing and able to walk the approximately twenty-seven kilometers to the junction of the Hart and Peel rivers, that would be sufficient landmark for me to direct someone to you."

The group exchanged glances. After a moment, Steve spoke. "That's not a problem for us. Iron Man?"

"It'll take an hour and a half for anyone to get to the rendezvous point from Eagle Plains. Think you can get to the rendezvous point that quickly in unfamiliar territory?" Tony caught his team leader's eyes, knowing that the trio probably could even as the smug smirk crossed Cap's face. "I can probably jump that far, if it comes to that. But it might be worth salvaging what we can from the quinjet, regardless. The jet itself isn't going to help us, but we might as well take along some food and water. It's possible, if unlikely, that the crew might not have time to stock the jet before they send it up here."

Widow nodded and strode off toward the jet without hesitation. Cap watched her go, then asked, "Don't you have a toolkit on the quinjet, Stark?"

Tony thought about that, trying to recall what was in it. "I do, but it won't be much use. I put that together in case of emergencies that render me unable to open the suit. I don't have any spare components in there to replace my repulsor lenses with."

"You going to be able to fly without them," Cap eyed him skeptically as Widow reappeared, carrying a pair of duffel bags filled with supplies.

She set the bags down at Cap's feet when she came to a stop in front of the others. "We have enough here for four for two days' march, if we need it. We'll be sleeping under the stars, if that happens."

"That's pretty standard," Tony said, glad of the chance to ignore Steve's last question, "I don't think any of our jets carries camping gear. For missions that require it, we have a special set of kit."

"There should be a space blanket in the first aid kit, though," Steve pointed out, correctly surmising that the kit was one of the first things Widow had grabbed.

"There were two kits. Both are in the bag," she confirmed, "anything else?"

"I think that's all." Steve looked each of them in the eye. "Iron Man, are arrangements in place for the rendezvous?"

"Should be. J?"

"Yes, sir. I have arranged for someone from Eagle Plains to pick you up at the river junction as planned."

"Bought and paid for, Cap," Tony reported.

Natasha picked up one duffel and slung it over her shoulder like a backpack, her arms through the handles. Steve picked up the other, throwing the long strap over his shoulder to rest diagonally over his torso. Barnes looked like he wished he had one of his own. Tony was glad he didn't. His arm was probably hurting like a bitch by now and carrying a duffel would only agitate the injury further.

As though summoned by Tony's thoughts, Barnes popped up by his side. Tony startled; he hadn't heard Barnes' approach. "Jesus! Warn a man, would you?"

Barnes shrugged. "Thought you saw me," he explained, laconically. "You walking with us?"

"No," Tony shook his head for emphasis. "I'll meet you there. I'm flying. The suit's not designed for walking, and I'm not leaving it here. I'd break it down and carry it, but that would be impractical, since I can't fit shoes under my armour. I'd effectively be barefoot."

Barnes scowled. "Without your palm repulsors you won't be able to balance."

"I'll be fine. I'll make short jumps," Tony reassured him. Barnes tried to stare him down with a long level look; Tony didn't budge. He pointed to the other two members of his team where they waited impatiently. "Go with Cap and Widow."

"You'll stay close."

It wasn't a request or a question. It was Tony's turn to scowl, suddenly annoyed. "You don't get to give me orders, Barnes," he replied, and dropped the faceplate. "Come on, J. Let's rock and roll. Nice and easy. Gimme ten percent thrust capacity."

As he flew up into the air, balancing precariously on bent knees and carefully positioned center of mass, an amused trickle of sound came from JARVIS. "The last time you said that, sir, you had on a wire frame construct with repulsors mounted in it."

Reaching the top of his arc and feeling momentarily weightless, Tony groaned, remembering the days he'd spent in his workshop in Malibu prototyping and testing the Mark II. "This time, I'm not going to end up with a concussion."

A glance down revealed that Barnes was easily keeping pace with him. Reluctantly impressed, Tony resisted the urge to shake his head in bemusement.

He hadn't asked Barnes what he did and didn't remember. Not yet. Perhaps, Tony mused, it was time to. If only to get an idea of what was going on in the man's head. He seemed to be loosening up. Especially around the rest of the team.

It made a certain kind of sense. HYDRA would have had that programming most heavily reinforced with the nanites. If their asset started thinking for himself or trusting people other than his handlers, that would spell trouble for HYDRA. It was pretty likely that, now that the nanites had been dealt with, that part of him was recovering quickly, thanks to the serum HYDRA had given him.

Tony landed on bent knees, about a half mile away from his starting point. Barnes appeared out of the trees from his left, with a smirk. "Still think you're faster, Stark?"

Raising an eyebrow, Tony accepted the challenge. "Damn right I'm faster."

"When your suit is intact, sure," Barnes agreed, his posture careless.

Tony could tell it was at least partly an act. He was favouring his right arm just ever so slightly. He shook his head, exaggerating the movements so that they would translate through the armour. In his peripheral vision, he saw his other two team members approach. They paused to listen to the conversation, and Tony wasn't sure what either of them thought was going on. "You're on," he agreed. "Let's see what you can do."

Barnes grinned, wide and fierce, like this was license to impress. "And if I win, you're taking me flying."

It was more of a demand than anything, and Tony knew he would do it even if Barnes lost. But for now, he acquiesced. Doing this seemed to make Barnes happy. "I'll be doing that in just a few hours," Tony pointed out.

"In the suit," Barnes clarified. "Not in a plane."

Barnes would fit right in, if he chose to stay around, with that thrill-seeking streak a mile wide. Cap laughed, catching Tony's attention.

"Are you two seriously having a footrace," he demanded, incredulous.

"Apparently," Tony replied. "And why not. Keeps him entertained," he jerked a thumb at Barnes.

"Says the man who can't back down from a challenge," Barnes replied.

Choosing not to answer verbally, Tony squared his stance, bent his knees, and threw himself into the air one more time. After that first jump, he didn't linger after landing.

Barnes followed, managing to stay impressively close on Tony's heels for the first five jumps. On the sixth jump, Tony lost track of the assassin as he hung at the apex of his trajectory. When he spotted Barnes again, three jumps later, the man had somehow managed to gain a half kilometer's worth of lead.

Okay, Tony admitted to himself, that was impressive. And it explained a lot about how Barnes had evaded him in Tunisia. So he didn't know how Barnes had done it, but the fact remained that his abilities were on par with Cap's, and far better in some areas. Cap couldn't do stealth for his life.

After that, they traded off the lead several times.

On the last jump, Barnes decided to make a break for the finish. Tony smirked. That just wouldn't do.

A bit of careful planning was called for, but he wasn't a genius with math for nothing. This time he cut his thrusters early, letting himself drop like a stone until he was a few tens of meters up. He slowed himself just enough to pull up into a hover behind Barnes and hook his arms around Barnes' waist.

"Gotcha!"

A quick burst of power, accompanied by a surprised yelp and a reflexive elbow to the armour's 'ribs' from Barnes, was enough to lift them both into the air, their forward momentum enough to leave them drifting forward through the air over the river.

"Don't even think it," Barnes threatened, apparently sensing the smirk that Tony couldn't -- and didn't want to -- suppress. "You drop me, and I'll find a way to convince JARVIS to help me get my revenge."

Tony laughed, deciding to be gracious in victory and set them down on the far side of the river. "Okay, okay. And you got your wish. One flight in the suit."

Barnes' eyes narrowed, but he couldn't refute the point. "Oh, you're a tricky one. I like that."

The logging road happened to be on the far side of the river confluence, as Tony realised when he set Barnes down. When Cap and Widow showed up a few minutes later, they were quick to deduce that Tony had carried Barnes over and request that he do the same for them.

Their ride wouldn't be arriving for a while yet. They'd managed the trip in just under an hour, and the drive from Eagle Plains to wherever the fuck they were was an estimated hour and forty-five minutes, according to JARVIS' updated calculations.

After a brief debate, they dug into their supplies and ate. Tony wasn't feeling hungry until the smell of food hit his nose. The others ate almost mechanically, caught somewhere between distraction and watchfulness.

For his part, Tony debated shucking the armour. It would be murder on an ordinary car's frame, but any vehicle that made it out this far would have to have a reinforced chassis and suspension. On the other hand, he had no way to carry it with him if he took it off. He hadn't thought to ask Widow for an extra duffel, and this wasn't one of the light and easily portable suits. He'd decided against taking one of the lighter models on this mission because he'd wanted the extra thrust and firepower.

And that had paid off in spades when the quinjet had been hit and he'd managed to find the power to keep it from crashing in an uncontrolled fashion. But now it was a bit of a hindrance.

Fifteen long minutes later, Barnes looked up, a faintly suspicious expression on his face. "Someone's coming."

"That's a good thing," Tony pointed out. Or tried to. Before he finished the sentence, Barnes had vanished as though he'd never been with them.

Cap sighed. "It's not a bad idea, Iron Man. Let him be until we can ascertain who's approaching."

"Timing's about right for our pickup," Widow supplied. "Are we expecting anyone in particular?"

"No," Tony had to answer. "You got a name for me, J?"

Before the AI had a chance to answer, a beat up looking pickup truck rounded the last corner. It was maintained fairly well for all its dents and rust patches, Tony noted as the driver pulled closer, waving and smiling cheerfully. She looked familiar.

It was Natasha who identified her as the truck came to a stop. "Darcy Lewis."

Cap looked surprised. "What's she doing out here?"

" _She_ ," Darcy retorted, "is right here and can answer for herself, thanks. I can't give you details; SHIELD classified most of it at pretty much the highest levels. I'm here with Jane."

As if that didn't tell them everything they needed to know. Jane was messing around with the Bifrost again, and SHIELD had sent her to a suitably remote place to do it. Tony watched her thoughtfully. JARVIS had chosen well. She was familiar enough with superheroes not to bat an eye, and trustworthy enough not to rat them out to anyone for technically cheating and entering Canada without their passports. For that matter, Tony amended, he was pretty sure he was the only one of the team that had a current passport besides Bruce.

"Hop in," Darcy offered after a moment of silence. "I've got room for two in the cab as long as they're good friends. The other two will have to ride in the back." She eyed Tony. "Sorry, but one of those is gonna have to be you, armour boy. You won't fit in the cab." She glanced around. "Wait, where's your last man? J said there were four of you."

While Tony eyed her, wondering when she'd had time to get so comfortable with his AI, she glanced around the area. He knew the moment Barnes stood up because she jumped about a foot. Impressive within the confines of the pickup's cab.

"Ooookay," she managed. "Now that I've had my heart attack for the day..." Darcy took a deep breath. "I don't know who you are, but I'm making you ride in the back with Stark."

Cap snorted. "I'll explain when we're on the road."

That immediately mollified her. "Top secret gossip? I'm there."

Widow looked like she couldn't decide whether to be more amused or irritated by the whole situation. Cap pointed toward the truck. "Shall we, Widow? I'm pretty sure Iron Man can manage the step up into the truck bed."

He couldn't, but Tony didn't bother pursuing the point. The trip from the base to the rendezvous point had been surprisingly tiring, for all that he'd effectively been flying the whole time.

Cap and Widow climbed into the cab without a second glance. Tony shrugged. "Hey, Barnes," he recalled the assassin's attention to himself, "come give me a hand up."

Barnes raised an eloquent eyebrow at him, but obligingly jumped up into the bed of the truck, vaulting over the side like it was nothing. The suspension rocked, but he kept his feet effortlessly. He took a step to the edge of the truck bed, dropped the tailgate, and offered Tony his prosthetic hand. Tony forced his renewed awareness of the man's magnetic charisma away and focused on doing his best not to force Barnes to lift his full weight and the armour's. Prosthetic arm or not, his weight in the armour would be enough to easily dislocate a man's shoulder. Even an enhanced man's. It had happened to Cap once. Barnes didn't need any new injuries.

It took a minute, but they managed to get Tony settled more or less comfortably and his weight centered over the four wheels. He would feel every last bump in the road, but it was still better than walking.

Well, it would be unless the roads got bad.

Tony winced at the thought. He already had enough bruises; he didn't want any more. This would be a lot more comfortable if he could take the armour off, but if he did that, then he would almost certainly end up damaging the undersuit and probably the truck as well. Not to mention that removing the armour would be difficult in a moving vehicle. He had missed his chance, really.

He let himself lie flat on his back and flipped up his faceplate. "When we get home I'm not getting out of bed for a week."

"When we get back to New York, you're taking the hottest shower you can stand and then soaking the rest of your bruises," Barnes asserted.

"Ugh," Tony groaned. "Maybe I'll stay in Malibu for a while. Take a vacation. Laze on my private beach. Finally start rebuilding my house."

Barnes didn't answer immediately. The truck started, a noisy clunk sounding as Darcy shifted the truck into gear. Tony winced. That was not the sound of a happy gearbox. JARVIS had said that her time had been compensated, but maybe he'd have to come out here and fix it up for her.

After a few minutes of silence as the truck rattled over uneven ground, Barnes asked, "rebuilding your house?"

Pausing to turn so he could brace his hands and his feet on either side of the truck bed, Tony considered his answer. "How much information you got on recent history?"

Barnes helpfully pinned Tony's hips in place with his feet as best he could. "Not much. Anything before May is a jumbled mix of ancient history and weird half-memories of things that I'm pretty sure will eventually be restored."

So, nothing before the events in DC. Right. Drawing breath to explain, Tony laid out the events of last Christmas as succinctly as he could. It still took a while, because the situation was complicated.

By the time he finished, they were on the road he'd noted on the map, and the ride had smoothed out a lot. No longer jostled and thrown from one side of the truck bed to the other, Tony relaxed, letting his hands drop back down to his sides and daring to sit up.

"Sir," JARVIS put in, "your private jet will be landing at the Wiley airfield north of Eagle Plains in just under 90 minutes. Your estimated remaining travel time is forty-five minutes."

"Any half decent restaurants in town willing to deliver to the airfield?"

"I doubt it, sir, but I can inquire."

"Nah," Tony sighed, knowing he sounded as tired as he felt, "don't bother. I'm not desperate enough to risk Chinese food worse than the MREs we're carrying. Did you file a return flight plan to New York or Malibu, J?"

"I have prepared both, but neither has been submitted yet."

The AI could submit the plans whenever, Tony knew. JARVIS knew how to fake a timestamp.

"We're going to New York, J. We'll need pickup from the airport."

Barnes watched him warily.

Right. More strangers. Tony suppressed a sigh. Barnes would have to get used to the idea eventually, if he was serious about wanting to share a bed. Tony was tempted to say so, too. It would get out eventually. If only because the tabloids perpetually stalked him with more rabid intensity than they followed Hollywood. It didn't matter how good Barnes was at disappearing into the background; at some point, someone would catch him on camera and the shit would hit the metaphorical fan.

That reminded him; he needed to give Pepper a heads up about the situation before they hit New York. Being forced to travel through a civilian airport meant they would be exposed to all kinds of cameras. That tended to cause trouble even when Tony was in civilian clothing, and having Cap and Widow would only ensure that they got all the more attention.

Putting the faceplate back down, Tony turned off his external speakers. "J, I know I'm asking a lot here, but generate me a text for Pepper that explains this?"

The AI made a sound approximating a sigh, and then a few sentences were displayed on the HUD. _Hey, Pepper, the team had some trouble on a mission; we're forced to go back to New York on my private jet, so be prepared for a possible flurry of paparazzi photos. The suit looks bad, but I'm fine. We have a rescued stray with us, and he might catch the media's attention._

All in all, that was far politer and more informative than anything Tony would have come up with. "Send it. Who's meeting us at the airport?"

Happy, who had been his driver until a promotion had landed him a position as head of security at SI, was still recovering from his injuries last Christmas. Since then Tony had gone through a few other drivers, but none had really suited him. More recently, he'd started driving himself places again, and damn the security risk.

But all of that presented a minor problem, now.

"Agent Coulson is sending Agent May with a company car."

Both of them were fairly trustworthy, but somehow Tony doubted Barnes would be willing to get in a car with May. Even if the team was present.

Tony made a decision.

Opening the faceplate again, he caught Barnes' eyes. "We're being picked up from LaGuardia by SHIELD Agent May," he announced. "You staying with us or finding your own way back to the Tower?"

A silence fell and held for several minutes as Barnes digested that and its ramifications. "When will you be back in the Tower?"

Apparently, based on that reaction, the jet's crew were accepted as being under Tony's authority, and therefore ignored, but anyone associated with SHIELD was potentially suspect. Tony shrugged. "No idea. Depends on whether Fury insists on a debrief, and how long he keeps us there. If you run into trouble, we won't be able to come help you. But as long as you have a reasonably secure route to the Tower, JARVIS will let you in."

Barnes didn't answer, and the remainder of the drive passed in silence. It was only when they arrived at the airfield that Barnes stirred himself to say anything. "Stark?"

"Yeah?" Tony watched Barnes and waited.

What Barnes asked surprised him completely.

"What would happen if I went to the debrief?"

Tony stared at him for a while, at a loss for words. After a few long seconds, he forced his thoughts back into order. What _would_ happen? Steve and Natasha had wiped HYDRA out of SHIELD. Hopefully permanently. But Tony wasn't sure what Fury would try. As long as the team was there to put their collective foot down on what was and wasn't allowed, it ought to be manageable. He eyed Barnes. "Hard to say. That could either go very well or very badly, depending on Fury and Hill. Coulson would probably side with us."

"Coulson?"

"Our handler. Well. Mostly Clint's, but he works with the rest of us, too. Hill is Fury's deputy. Would probably side with him. She hates me on principle."

Barnes made an affirmative sound and settled back to think as Darcy wove her way through the sparsely filled parking lots to the corner nearest the airfield and hangars. After a while, he asked, "And the rest of the team?"

Tony snorted. "They'll side with me. Steve will, by default. The others will follow our lead, unless there's a very good reason not to."

Barnes nodded, but the skeptical expression didn't leave. Darcy parked the truck before he replied. "I... Black Widow seems familiar, somehow. From... before."

Natasha, who had managed to exit the vehicle without disturbing the suspension, huffed. "Good. That means you're starting to remember."

"If that's indicative of what I'll be remembering, I'm not sure I want to," he retorted.

"That's another good sign," she shot back.

The truck's center of mass shifted as Steve climbed out of the cab after Natasha. Tony had to brace himself against the side of the truck bed to keep his balance. Barnes simply stood and jumped down, the movements solid and grounded. Tony gingerly stood, crouching to keep his weight as low as he could in an attempt to keep his balance.

It mostly worked, but Barnes had to help steady him as he jumped down out of the truck bed and stumbled, off balance.

When he was back on his feet, Tony straightened. "Thanks." Turning to Darcy, he added, "we owe you one. You or Jane need anything, you let me or JARVIS know."

"Thanks, man," Darcy grinned. "I'll remember that next time I'm in New York."

Steve cut the discussion short. "We should find a less public place to wait for the jet."

"The open hangar to your seven should suit," Natasha suggested. "What does the weather forecast say, Stark?"

"Supposed to remain clear and cool until nightfall. We should be fine." He caught Steve's eyes. "We have a few things to discuss once we have some privacy."

Darcy was smart enough to take the hint. "Say hi to Hawkass for me," she threw over her shoulder. "I guess it's back to boring rural life for me."

"Say hello to Jane," Steve interjected.

Darcy waved an acknowledgment over her shoulder and got back into her truck. "Oh, and one more thing," she added as she started the car. "Tell Coulson he still owes me an iPod."

Tony nodded, baffled. Natasha raised an eloquent eyebrow at him. "Do you believe everything that comes from a lady with a nice pair?"

"Within reason," Tony answered. "Is that a problem?"

Darcy laughed at them and gunned the engine. "Later, suckers! Enjoy your wait!"

Barnes stared after her. "You guys just attract crazy."

"You have no idea," Steve sighed. "Come on. Let's get inside before we attract too much attention. Stark's jet arriving will be the most excitement this place has seen in decades."

Tony grinned and turned to lead the way into the hangar. "I'd dispute that, but I'm pretty sure you're right, Cap."

The three of them that were unarmoured found places to sit, and Tony started prying the suit off. As he worked, he outlined what he and Barnes had discussed. Steve nodded slowly as he finished.

"The idea has some merit. One way or another we'd have to deal with that meeting. Might as well get it over with now and use the opportunity to direct the outcome toward what we want."

Natasha added, "if we brought Barnes in now, willingly, we could use that as currency to make sure Fury doesn't conveniently 'lose' him to the research division."

"That's exactly what we'd prefer to avoid," Tony replied dryly.

"It wouldn't go well for him, if he tried." Barnes glared at the ground.

"Let's avoid gutting SHIELD any more than we have to," Natasha kept her voice firm. "HYDRA's influence is gone, now, and I'd prefer to keep it that way. If they have to recruit too many new staff, that presents a problem."

Steve stepped in. "The Director knows better than to expect me to go along with a plan like that, anyway."

Tony snorted, dropping one more armour component onto the slowly growing pile with a loud clang. "No shit. After your little display in DC, the whole world knows that."

"You think Fury would let me walk out of there a free man?" Barnes eyed Steve and Natasha skeptically.

"I think that if the Avengers accepted responsibility for you, he would allow you to live in the Tower," Tony said bluntly, and gesturing with his screwdriver. "If we can prove at a later date that your memories are back and you're not going back to HYDRA or just shooting up random targets, it should be fine. None of the kills attributed to the Winter Soldier were ever proven. And that means, legally, Fury has nothing on you, whether the allegations are true or not. And if he tries, I've got an army of lawyers," Tony paused for effect. "I'd prefer to leave the legal side of things out of it; that'll only piss off both sides. But I'll do it if we have to."

Natasha nodded thoughtfully. "I'm fairly sure it won't be necessary, Stark."

That was when the jet arrived, ending the discussion. Tony, still half in his armour, asked Widow to check on the status of the plane. Whether they needed to fuel up to reach New York, or deal with any issues.

While she did, Barnes and Steve helped him out of the rest of his armour. Between Steve's strength and Barnes' dexterity, it took far less time than it would have if he'd done it on his own.

To his own surprise, knowing that they both knew how to peel him out of the suit didn't freak Tony out. Much.

Natasha reappeared as they finished, and began distributing the armour into the two duffel bags filled with supplies that they'd brought with them all the way from the HYDRA base.

"They're fueling up, but the crew says they can do that while we're aboard," she reported.

Tony nodded. That much was standard procedure, for when he didn't want to spend a lot of time on the tarmac. "Let's go, then. They have the stairs out?"

"They do," Natasha confirmed.

Oddly, now that he was out of the suit, Tony felt his injuries all the more. One of his bruises pulled as he tried to adjust the undersuit, and he hissed at the sudden sting. Barnes eyed him as though trying to figure out by telepathy whether to haul Tony over his shoulder again.

"Good." Tony moved to pick up one of the duffels, only to have Barnes snatch it out of his hand with a glare.

"You're hurt."

It wasn't a question. Tony groaned. "A bit. Lots of bruises. Nothing broken. Your injuries are worse."

Steve was more direct about it. "You're going straight to medical after the debrief, Tony. And you're getting patched up on the flight back to New York, Barnes. No arguments."

"I'm almost at a point where I don't even care anymore, as long as I get some good painkillers," Tony replied while Barnes glared at Cap.

Natasha snorted. "One of these days, we'll toughen you up properly, Stark."

To everyone's surprise, that got a warning growl out of Barnes and he turned to stare her down.

"Riiight," Tony recovered first, "cool it, Barnes. She was joking."

Steve was giving Barnes a thoughtful look. "Not a bad thing, though, if you have someone looking out for you, Stark. God knows I can't always be around to do it, with the way Fury likes to 'borrow' my services."

"Well," Tony retorted, "if you hadn't gutted SHIELD, he wouldn't use you to make up for his sudden lack of manpower. That one's your own fault, Rogers. And don't pretend you don't also enjoy it." Tony snorted. "Hell, sometimes I think you like getting punched."

Before Steve could reply, Barnes groaned, his voice hoarse with pain and staggered, falling to one knee and putting his left fist to his temple. All of them turned to face him. Tony found himself caught between wanting to pull Barnes into his arms to return the favor for the panic attack Barnes had broken him out of, and holding himself back lest Barnes accidentally injure him. Tony knew Barnes would need a long while to work around to forgiving himself if that happened.

Tony refocused on his team leader in time to note that Steve looked worried. "Bucky?"

"Don't touch him," Natasha said when Steve took a step forward and reached out to put a hand on Barnes' shoulder. "Give him a moment."

Pulling in a stuttering breath, Barnes looked up and met Steve's eyes directly. Tony could see the mingled hope and uncertainty in Barnes' posture. And that Steve was totally focused on Barnes; this was something the assassin hadn't done since the team had pulled him out of HYDRA's clutches. Probably hadn't done since before Steve had taken his nosedive into the North Atlantic.

"I had him on the ropes," Barnes murmured, looking like he'd suddenly rediscovered the moon in the sky.

It was like watching the fabled walls of Jericho fall.

Steve made a choked sound like he'd been gut punched, but didn't move though it was clear he desperately wanted to. "Buck? You alright?"

Tony could only watch, stunned, as the scene unfolded. To his relief -- which was a lot stronger than he wanted to admit to anyone -- Barnes nodded. Tony hadn't expected that _he_ would be the one to trigger the return of Barnes' memories, and wasn't quite sure what to do with that information. He'd been planning to prod at the nanites as soon as they were back in New York, but it now looked like that plan was obsolete. But that was a good thing in a lot of ways. Barnes and Steve could have their reunion, and he could take some time to catch up on the shit that needed to get done and had been neglected in favour of their mission to find Barnes. Win-win, really.

Barnes' voice, still rough, pulled him back out of his thoughts.

"Gimme a minute, punk."

"You gave me a hell of a scare, jerk."

To Tony, it looked like Steve's world was realigning. It was kind of awe inspiring. That anyone had that level of importance to Steve...

The man had always seemed like an untouchable infinitely stable point. The fulcrum you could use to move the world. But it was ridiculously obvious now that Barnes was Steve's touchstone. The bedrock the fulcrum had rested on until Barnes' supposed death.

Tony felt weirdly jealous, and tried his best to quash that. He had no hold over either of them. No claim to reinforce.

Given the way the two of them were staring at each other, Tony suspected their relationship had been more than strictly platonic during the war.

And damned if that didn't somehow simultaneously make for amazing spank fodder and send his vague hopes of a chance with Barnes spiraling down into nothingness. Holing up in the workshop was sounding like a better and better idea all the time. Clearing his throat to get the sudden tightness out had the side benefit of getting everyone's attention. "We should move this party to the jet," he reminded them. "Don't want to miss out takeoff window."

This time they listened. Natasha led the way with Tony at her side, putting on his best swagger. Steve followed, his feet seeming to barely touch the ground. Barnes looked exhausted, where he walked at Steve's shoulder.

Not that Tony was looking.

The crew welcomed them aboard the jet with what would have been remarkable aplomb in anyone else's employ. They were used to weirder from Tony. Which was saying something, considering that they'd just been called to the Yukon to pick up a very worn down looking Tony wearing nothing more than his under armour, two similarly bedraggled superheroes, and a bloodied, scowling Barnes, who was intimidating even at the best of times. Right now he was probably fighting a headache, Tony suspected. The grumpy expression he wore wasn't helping. Two of the three flight attendants were giving him a very wide berth.

It helped when Steve dropped down into the seat next to Barnes and started talking quietly.

Tony watched the two of them for a few seconds, then staked a claim on one of the sofas in the cabin and stretched out with a quiet groan. His older bruises were twinging and the new ones were throbbing, and all he wanted was to sleep.

Closing his eyes and throwing an arm over his face, Tony tried to get comfortable and failed.

He woke when the plane accelerated for takeoff, staying where he was until his ears popped, then peeled his eyes open and glanced around. Steve was dead asleep and half sprawled over Barnes. For his part, Barnes looked like he wasn't sure whether this was a good thing.

Natasha was nowhere to be seen.

Tony contemplated getting up, then decided against it.

Not worth it. He'd get up when they reached New York, and not before. With a grumble, he rearranged himself a little more comfortably and closed his eyes again. Let Steve and Barnes work things out. It would be better if they did before the debrief rather than after. There would be less drama all 'round.

Their arrival at LaGuardia was about as much of a clusterfuck as Tony had expected it would be. The customs agents tried to stop them from deboarding the plane and gotten tied up in paperwork hell by Agent May in retaliation, Pepper had called and asked what the fuck he was thinking, and he'd had to stop to take her call halfway through an argument with a very pissed customs agent.

In the end, it had taken nearly an hour to deal with that tangled mess. Tony still wasn't entirely sure how it had gotten resolved, but there were good odds that May had simply put her foot down and referred the customs agents to SHIELD's information bureau, where, Tony knew, they would get buried in yet more paperwork to be filled out in triplicate.

Eventually, May managed to extract them, loading all of them into the car as quickly as possible. The customs agents had eyed Barnes and Natasha askance as they'd gotten into the SHIELD SUV, only partly mollified by Steve's presence. They knew Tony by reputation as a billionaire playboy far better than as an Avenger. And his attire, or lack thereof, wasn't helping matters much. Nor was his injury-induced irritation.

As he settled into the seat, Tony winced. Thank fuck, this would be a short drive.

Sitting through the debrief also went roughly as they had expected. Barnes' presence had counted heavily in their favor, and Fury had eventually agreed to release him into Avengers custody pending the arrival of one Charles Xavier to confirm their respective stories.

And, Tony had to admit, that was something of a master stroke. Xavier was very highly respected, even if his X-Men as a whole were not, and that was mostly because of Wolverine's rather abrasive presence on the team. Having Xavier do his thing independently confirmed that Barnes wasn't a threat to the Avengers or SHIELD, gave both groups' assessments an added layer of credibility, and made Barnes' potential subsequent screw-ups effectively Tony's problem. Tony, as the current primary funding source of the Avengers and the man currently housing the team, then became the media target in the case of any clusterfuck.

In large part this didn't really bother Tony. He was already taking the fire for the rest of the Avengers where it came to the media inquisitions that followed each of their rather public missions. What was one more crazy ex-assassin? It was more the principle of the thing. He didn't really appreciate when Fury arbitrarily made things his problem that didn't have to be.

The situation and the way it had been summarily dumped into his lap was something Tony decided he would have to discuss loudly and at length with the good director, the next time a SHIELD contract crossed his desk. At least he could squeeze some good out of the situation and use it for leverage, that way.

But for now, the requirements from SHIELD's side were that they needed to make an appointment for Xavier to come down to SHIELD HQ, and that in the meantime, Barnes had to stay put in their oh-so-generously offered secured room. Tony highly doubted that SHIELD's idea of secure would actually stop Barnes if he wanted to get out, but carefully didn't say so. If he played his cards right, he actually would have the upper hand in this scenario.

When Fury had swept back out of the briefing room, Tony had let himself slump forward with a loud pained groan. "So that went better than expected," he quipped.

Steve chuckled and stepped over to haul Tony up out of his chair. "Come on, Tony. It's high time we got you to medical. Bucky, you're coming too, so help me. I want them to take a good look at that arm."

Tony whined wordlessly at him.

Steve snorted and steered Tony out of the room. "You're not getting out of this. Don't even bother. You said yourself you wanted the painkillers."

Barnes trailed half willingly after them.

Two hours later, with Tony and Barnes professionally patched up and medicated, Steve took the bit in his mouth and hauled the two of them back to the Tower rather than comply with Fury's orders. He'd declared that he wasn't about to see his best friend locked in a cage, no matter how polite the jailer, and commandeered a conveniently idling helicopter, to Tony's vast amusement.

Tony wasn't about to argue with results, though. And neither was Barnes, to all appearances. He'd made a resigned face, and didn't object as Steve hustled them aboard and gave the pilot the boot. "Tony," he demanded, dropping the pair of duffels they still had on hand to the floor of the chopper, "you know how to fly one of these, right?"

"I haven't in years, but sure." Tony obligingly took the pilot's seat, strapped himself in and pulled on the comms helmet. "I've gotta say, I never thought I'd see the day that Captain America stole a helicopter."

"We're borrowing," Steve snapped back at him. "Let's go before someone gets offended by our borrowing."

Tony couldn't help the laugh that comment pulled out of him. "Sir, yes sir!" Life with these guys around was never dull. "This's like being twenty-five again."

Tony could hear Barnes' raised eyebrow in his reply. "What the hell were you doing at twenty-five?"

"Anything and everything."

"And everyone," Steve muttered, a little darkly, just barely audible over the rising whine of the chopper's engine and the throb of the blades.

"But those days are behind me," Tony went on, ignoring the commentary, "I am a reformed character. I act only for the good of the people, now."

Any reply was lost in the noise as the chopper rose into a hover, gently drifting up off the landing area, and hung there for a moment before Tony gunned the engine.

They were touching down on the Tower's helipad under a quarter of an hour later. Predictably, Fury had been pissed when he'd found out about their little escapade and left Tony several angry messages. They were deleted unopened. "JARVIS," he asked instead, "do me a favor and have one of my pilots return the helicopter to SHIELD HQ, would you? Cap insists that we're only borrowing it. I guess we can play fair and refuel it for the owner."

Steve raised an eyebrow at him but said nothing. Barnes made an amused sound. "Good to know someone else is willing to call you on your crap, punk."

"Bucky."

Tony was amazed to hear the whine in Steve's voice, and had to bite his lip to hold back his snicker. When he'd managed to regain control his voice, he chimed in. "What? You are constantly on my back about following orders, and when I do, you complain? No consistency at all, Rogers."

That got an outright laugh out of Barnes. Steve rolled his eyes, but he couldn't hide his own satisfaction. "I'm taking a shower. Tony, eat."

Three days later, they were recalled to SHIELD HQ by a very irritated Deputy Director Hill to let Xavier poke at Barnes. Tony watched from outside the room, with Steve. Only Fury and Hill were allowed in the room for the exam, as they called it. While he worked, Xavier offered something or said something to Barnes, Tony could tell by the way Barnes briefly tensed, startled, and then relaxed just as suddenly. But neither of the two SHIELD higher-ups reacted beyond a twitch of defensiveness in their body language.

Thankfully, the whole thing was over within minutes. Fury stood, and nodded, apparently satisfied, and left without a word. Hill lingered long enough to say something to Xavier, then stood to escort him and Barnes out of the room.

"Mr. Stark, Captain. Keep up the good work. If I can do anything further to assist in this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me." Xavier left with a nod and a smile for all of them, Hill at his side to escort him out of the building.

Tony had to wonder what Xavier had seen or heard, but knew the man would never say a word about it. He held such things in strictest confidence. Shaking off his mood, he caught Barnes' attention. "Back to the Tower?"

"You gonna order food, Stark?"

"Depends." Tony turned toward the door with a smirk, knowing Steve and Barnes would follow. "What do you want?"

The next two days passed quietly. Tony spent his time exclusively in the workshop, only emerging for food every so often.

He spent the first day playing catch up on all of the mind-numbingly boring crap he'd put off in favour of this fairly long string of missions. He'd gotten through the most important things that night after they'd removed the nanites, but there were a lot of little things he had to go through; reports from R&D, requests from various companies to license this proprietary part or that one, invitations to god knew how many social events, and about six million and twelve emails labeled 'urgent' that weren't really but he couldn't ignore because they _might_ be vaguely important. JARVIS tried to convince him to go out and interact with the team a few times at Steve's prompting, but Tony ignored it. He had work to do, and Barnes' reunion with Steve wasn't one Tony was keen to interrupt. Steve thought he wanted Tony there, but that was pretty clearly not the case.

Instead of unlocking the door and leaving the workshop, he watched through JARVIS' status reports as Barnes slowly uncurled in a way that was almost physical and reached out to the rest of the team, one by one. He never seemed to leave Steve's side, though, and it was obvious to anyone with eyes how much Steve loved that.

It stung more than a little, after the way Barnes had latched onto him, previously, but Tony knew this was more the way things should be. Knew that he'd gotten far too attached far too quickly. That this was how things would have been initially, had Barnes not been so thoroughly fucked over by HYDRA. A few hours later, Tony passed out on the sofa and slept in his workshop. When he woke, his eyes fell on the remains of his armour, spread across three different worktables while it waited patiently for him to find time to work on it. Well, it was about time he did, Tony decided; most of the R&D stuff had been dealt with, and Pepper had a couple of new schematics for clean energy-based devices to pitch to the Board.

Before he knew it, another day had slipped by while he'd buried himself in suit upgrades and repairs.

And so it took Tony by surprise when Barnes showed up at the workshop door on the third day, a dark scowl on his face. JARVIS had opened the door for him without prompting, and Barnes stalked into the large room, silently angry.

Tony was baffled. He refused to say a word before he knew why Barnes was pissed, though.

Eventually, Barnes broke the building silence. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, Stark?"

Tony drew himself up to his full height. "Catching up on work. Repairing the suit. Why the fuck is this a problem, Barnes?"

The sneer that drew out of Barnes was something else in its expressiveness. "I know for a fact that you finished the actually important things around the 36 hour mark," he replied. Tony took that to mean that Barnes and JARVIS had been colluding again. Before he could reply, Barnes continued. "You've barricaded yourself in here to do busywork and avoid the team."

It was true, but Tony wasn't about to admit to anything. "Keeping myself updated on what my R&D department is doing is hardly busywork."

"JARVIS can easily do that, and usually does, he tells me. You're hiding from us. Why?"

And with that, Barnes had cut directly to the heart of the matter. Tony didn't know what to say. "I..."

"Well, I for one am sick of it. Get your head out of your ass."

"Barnes, you don't even--"

"No, Stark. Shut up. You won't join us for meals, Barton and Romanova are wondering what the fuck is wrong with you, Dr. Banner is at a loss for what to do, and you won't talk to Steve when he tries to reach out through JARVIS. You wouldn't even believe how much he's moping about that."

Tony swallowed around the tightness in his throat. "I wasn't hiding."

The withering look _that_ reply got him spoke volumes about just how much Barnes didn't believe him. "Whatever. I've said what I have to say. Either come rejoin the team or isolate yourself. I thought you knew better than to just hide from whatever it is you're scared of, but clearly I was wrong."

And with that, Barnes turned on his heel and left.

Tony could only stare after him, wondering what the fuck had just happened.

Somewhat tellingly, JARVIS said nothing.

His AI's silent censure was more effective than Barnes' lecture. Tony grumbled a string of profanity under his breath that ended on a frustrated growl. "J, save and close."

"Might I suggest a shower and some rest, sir."

"No need to be snippy," Tony replied, but he complied, secure in the knowledge that JARVIS cared about him.

Sure, J was programmed to help him and take care of him, Tony reflected as he stepped into the waiting elevator, but the AI had grown in leaps and bounds beyond those initial parameters. The introduction of the Iron Man armour had been a quantum leap, in that respect. After that, J had started being a lot more insistent in his tendency to try to make sure Tony took care of himself. The introduction of the team into his life, and his breakup with Pepper had been similarly strong reinforcement to the initial push.

Having the team around effectively gave JARVIS license to do whatever he thought necessary to keep Tony in good physical condition. The AI had started prodding Tony into sparring with Steve, once they'd gotten over their differences, into spending time socialising with Barton and cooking with Natasha and Bruce, even if Tony's idea of cooking amounted to 'make coffee'.

But Barnes had been something of a revelation to the AI, it seemed.

Tony stripped down to his boxers as he walked through his apartments.

Right from the start, JARVIS had noticed that Tony was drawn to the man. And that Barnes seemed to return the sentiment, along with a good dose of the more platonic kind of attention Tony hadn't realised he craved until it had been too late to hold himself back.

Now that he thought about it, that was probably how and why J had adopted Barnes so readily.

Well, that and the way Barnes mothered him, Tony admitted silently to himself as he pushed open the door to his bedroom.

He stopped dead in the doorway.

"About time you got here," Barnes smirked at him from the bed, giving him a slow once over from head to toe with a very clear look of appreciation in his eyes.

Barnes was similarly dressed, lounging on the bed in nothing but a very brief pair of briefs. Tony had to close his eyes and swallow to clear his throat. He forced his eyes back open before he replied. "What's that mean?"

"Means that I've tried this for the third time, now, and would like it to work, finally."

Well, shit.

Tony managed to get his muscles to unlock after a couple of tries, moving toward the bed. "You sure about this, Barnes?"

Tony got a half-indignant huff in reply. "I've got most of my memories back. The important ones, anyway, and the rest are slowly reappearing. I'd like something nice to think about in the now to balance out the shitty things about the past."

"Is that all it is?" Tony ventured closer, stopping next to the bed, but not sitting down. "'Cause I'm not gonna turn you down if it is, but I'd like to know."

"That what you think of me, Stark?" Barnes reached out with his prosthetic and hooked his hand in the waistband of Tony's boxers. With a sharp yank, he pulled Tony off balance and ripped the underwear, letting it fall to the floor as Tony flailed, trying to keep his feet, and failed, tumbling onto the bed with a grunt.

Barnes quickly flipped him onto his back and pinned him to the mattress, taking Tony's hands in his right and holding them firmly pinned to the pillow above Tony's head. He was supporting himself on his other hand and holding Tony's eyes with the kind of magnetic stare that was nearly impossible to break. They were almost nose-to-nose, and Tony could feel the heat radiating off Barnes' torso. The cold metal of the prosthetic hand was planted on the bed beside Tony's head, and one calf was casually brushing against his right thigh where Barnes was carefully keeping his weight off Tony's hips. Tony felt like the points of contact -- sparse as they were -- would drive him crazy. It was one hell of a tease, and was quickly ramping up his interest in things other than talk.

Barnes headed that off at the pass with a squeeze of Tony's wrists. "Now," he said, "you gonna listen to me, Stark?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"In listening to what I have to say, no," Barnes shot back, "but consent is a thing. JARVIS caught me up on some stuff."

"Alright, fine." Tony replied, forcing some of the tension back out of his shoulders and trying not to think about the way Barnes was very effectively seducing him. He clearly hadn't been kidding when he'd bragged about being good at this. "Lay it on me."

"You said I should come back to you when I remembered. And you were right," Barnes said slowly, clearly choosing his words carefully. "I see that now, though I didn't then. But you didn't exactly make that easy, with the way you ran off and hid in your workshop for three days."

"But I--"

Barnes silenced him with a look. "Let me finish."

Tony huffed at him, but pointedly didn't speak.

After a moment, Barnes continued. "Look, I'll put it bluntly. You gave me a chance even after I shot at you. You helped me get free of HYDRA. You gave me back myself and my best friend from before, and then offered me some new ones. You offered me your home, and your trust. And then, as if that wasn't enough, you offered me a chance to step out with you, even knowing that I have rivers of blood dripping from my hands. Now, at the risk of sounding like a greedy man, I intend to take it."

Tony watched him for a moment. "If you know anything about me, you know I'm hardly a paragon of virtue."

Barnes smirked, the expression about as filthy as Tony had ever seen. "Why do you think I like you? If you were a paragon of virtue, you'd never be caught dead with the likes of me."

"And Rogers?"

That got an incredulous laugh. "Steve is just as much of a little shit as you are. He just hides it better."

"And when the media comes down on us?"

"Do you care if they do, Stark?"

"Fuck no. They've said worse about me. Thought you might," Tony challenged him, "given your past and possible future assignments. And if we're going to do this, call me Tony."

Barnes gave him a considering look. "Call me James. Steve still thinks of me as 'Bucky', but that's not who I am anymore."

Tony grinned. "My best friend is also a James, so that might be a bit weird in bed. You need a new nickname."

Barnes, no, James, snorted. "We'll see about that."

Tony would have answered, but James was leaning in and kissing him thoroughly, exploring and learning how Tony responded, and that was one hell of a distraction.

It took a while for them to break apart, and when they did, Tony hummed happily. "You that good at everything?" Tony tried to worm his hands free. When he couldn't seem to manage it, he grumbled a curse under his breath.

James watched him squirm for a moment, considering. "Care to find out?"

"Damn right, I do."

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Footnotes:

[1] Colmar is located in the border region of France, near Germany. Alsace was a region of major importance in both world wars. [Google maps, Alsace](https://www.google.ch/maps/place/Alsace,+France/@48.3038985,6.7078198,8z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x479146a3db7796bf:0x10a5fb99a3724e0). Click here to return to text.

[2] [List of Thai noodle dishes](https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=List_of_Thai_dishes#Noodle_dishes). Click here to return to text.

[3] Wikipedia link on [TENS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcutaneous_electrical_nerve_stimulation). Click here to return to text.

[4] The Crim is a region of the Ukraine with strategic importance to Russia, which has very few warm water ports. [Google maps, Mariupol'](https://www.google.ch/maps/place/Mariupol',+Donetsk+Oblast,+Ukraine/@46.2164522,35.1148482,580897m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x40e6e6a7bee7582b:0xa5d118300a75b5ce?hl=en). Click here to return to text.

[5] Wikipedia link about the [assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Austria). The History Channel has some additional information, [including footage](http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/archduke-franz-ferdinand-assassinated). In a nutshell, this was the event that caused a cascade of mutual defense treaties to kick into action, effectively tearing Europe in half for about half a decade, and subsequently plunging parts of it into inflation-fueled depressions. Click here to return to text.

[6] Wikipedia link about the [Dragunov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragunov_sniper_rifle) Barnes likes to carry. This gun is infamous because it was not meant for highly trained and specialized sniper teams, but rather for [designated marksmen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designated_marksman). Click here to return to text.

[7] Wikipedia link about the [Theory of Everything](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything). This is the search for a a comprehensive theory that links all of the forces of the universe and works on all length- and time-scales. Click here to return to text.

[8] Wikipedia link about [dialysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialysis). Click here to return to text.

[9] [Google maps, HYDRA, Texas base](https://www.google.ch/maps/@31.6406894,-105.4730304,9z). Click here to return to text.

[9b] [Google maps, HYDRA, Yukon base](https://www.google.ch/maps/@65.4096552,-132.9293922,6z). Click here to return to text.

[10] WebMD link with more information on [dialysis](http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/hemodialysis-20667). Click here to return to text.

[11] Briefly, a pauldron is the plate of armour that protects the shoulder. Some more information can be found at this [Wiki link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauldron). Here are [a couple ](https://i.warosu.org/data/cgl/img/0075/25/1398767109168.jpg) [of examples](https://www.medievalarmour.com/images/PRODUCT/large/MCI-2559_1_.png). Click here to return to text.

[12] Wikipedia link on the [principles of magnets and electric currents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_field#Magnetic_field_due_to_moving_charges_and_electric_currents) that I was referencing. Click here to return to text.

[13] Follow the link for an image of [an Eppendorf tube](http://eshop.eppendorf.ca/upload/productView/Eppendorf_Safe-Lock-tubes.jpg). Click here to return to text.

[14] Wikipedia links with definitions of [MEMS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microelectromechanical_systems) and [NEMS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanoelectromechanical_systems). Click here to return to text.

[15] Wikipedia link on how [stress concentrations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_concentration) work. Click here to return to text.

[16] Wikipedia link on how metals deform: [ductile materials](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress%E2%80%93strain_curve#Ductile_materials). Click here to return to text.

[17] Included below are maps lovingly copy-pasted off google maps and edited to suit my purposes; these are meant to illustrate the distances involved in the discussion Tony's initiated about how to get to the airfield. The numbers simply don't convey the same information.

  

Click here to return to text.

Other notes:

WWII radio protocol:  
Abridged - http://www.hardscrabblefarm.com/ww2/radio_card.htm  
Full manual - https://archive.org/details/Fm24-6

Radio silence protocol:  
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_silence

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